Derek Goddart and the X-men
by Ironseabass
Summary: Slight AU (Slight-Marvel Crossover), Derek Goddart is the first student of Charles Xavier, after being rescued by Ororo, Logan, and Charles, how will this genius mutant with the power of gravitational manipulation effect the world around him?
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own "X-men Evolution"; it is an awesome cartoon and it belongs to Marvel, which belongs to Disney now… The legal rights belong to Marvel. Hope you enjoy!**

My name is Derek Goddart, and I am an eleven year old that is tall for his age, with long blonde hair and bright neon green eyes. I have several scars on my body, but there is a long one over my right eye from an experiment gone wrong. I nearly lost my eyesight, but now it has recovered.

My head was ringing, after all the sirens during my escape from the facility. After my powers emerged, my aunt abandoned me. Which drove me to, questionable actions. After hacking several bank accounts in order to survive, the found me, and ever since, I have been in the facility.

Let me explain what I did to land myself in this hell on Earth.

-Flashback-

There I was, in an Internet café at the time, after my powers emerged, my mind became very… analytical. My brain became accelerated, meaning I could think nearly three times faster than anyone else. This meant that my brain processed ideas and data faster, and I was starting to anticipate people's movements and actions, this mutation even brought out an eidetic memory now. It also seemed that the older I got the faster my thoughts could be processed. I was ten years old when I started hacking into the bank accounts, and lets just say I had some traumatic experiences when I was thrown onto the street. Also, I had to design the computer in my head, meaning that so far, I only have the processing power of the first computer invented. Still, it's a start.

Anyways, there I was in the Internet café, stealing money from bank accounts in order to survive. When suddenly, soldiers from black ops just come crashing through the windows, their guns aimed directly from my brain. I even noticed several snipers in the rooftop across from me.

"Put your hands behind your head and don't move!"

I felt a gun on the back of my head, the cold iron shaking me to the core. This could be the last thing I could ever process, one slip of the finger, and I'm dead. I slowly put my hands on the back of my head, and I'm forced down to floor in a rough manner.

"You're coming with us! Cuff him and take him to the van!" the same guard from earlier yelled.

They forced me into the van, putting me against one wall, while the sniper I saw earlier entered, aiming his rifle at me, while we were on the move.

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" I asked the sniper in a calm conduct. I felt a little fear, but due to my mutation, I was calm.

"We are taking you to the facility, congratulations boy, you are going to change the world, even if you are unwilling." Responded the sniper.

He then lifted his rifle and slammed it into my head. I discovered later on, that the action activated my secondary power, but I didn't find out about that until much later, anyways, when I woke up from my unconscious state, I was in a cell, and not just any cell, a cell with a small electromagnetic field.

For some reason, my mind became slightly fogged; I discovered that later on, it disrupted my secondary powers, and my primary mutation to a certain extent. My mind was processing the surroundings at the moment, trying to find a weakness in the structure of my cell. However, I noticed something and that analysis of my cell became a secondary concern. When I looked out of the cell, I saw only one other person in the glass container from me.

She was floating in a green liquid, and she looked no older than nine or ten. She had straight brown hair, and her mouth and nose were attached to a breather. It looked like she had been there most of her life, if not all of it.

'What the hell are they doing in this facility?!' I thought.

I would soon discover my purpose in the facility.

-One-year later-

Over the course of the year, I have been poked, prodded, electrocuted, and even hooked up to a machine that knocked me unconscious for a month! It was horrible, luckily, my mind started to become faster, process information even faster. Before the people of the facility caught me, I had the equivalent knowledge of a third year undergraduate student in computer engineering and physics.

During the "experimentation" process the scientists conducted on me, I studied the guards shifts, knew the locations of all the cameras of the facility, even the name of my roommate.

It turns out her name is "X-23", and she was grown from the genetic material of another mutant called "Project X". She was taken out of her tank for training, but for some reason they would always block my cell when she got in and out of the thing, must be to keep her away from my "charming personality".

Anyways, I have been formulating an escape plan for the past month, and so far my mind cannot find a flaw in it, and if worse came to worse, I could probably come up with something on the fly. If I could multiply 1,073,392 x 4,039,039 in less than five seconds, I think I can come up with a plan. I just needed to be a little, creative. Unfortunately, creativity isn't my strong suit, but I'm working on it.

-Twenty minutes ago-

I came up with a plan, I would need to knock out the guard who gave me my one meal a day, and then climb up into the air vents. From there, I would go down the hall, take a right, right, left, right, left, right, up, right, left, up, and then I was home free, as the air vents would take me to the surface. I found out this facility was underground, and unfortunately I wasn't sure where I would turn up, I just wanted to get out.

My plan was complete, and I decided I would break out that night. When the guard came to deliver my meal he came with a plate of bread, an apple, and some cheese.

I decided to taunt him into coming toward me.

"Why so scared of a kid?"

Unfortunately, that did not elicit a response, so I had to come up with more drastic measures. Luckily, I overheard a conversation between the guards one time about their lives, now to find the sweet spot to get a rise in their anger.

"Hey John, how is your cocaine business going?" I was very insightful, and by the way he was moving and acting, I could tell he had something to hide. And I deduced that he was doing illegal actions, so I guessed he was selling drugs.

"Why you little!..."

'Looks like I was right'

Now, time to take him down. He rushed toward me in the back of the cell, and when he got close, I quickly did a sweeping kick, knocking him down onto the hard steel floor. Before he could get up, I punched his temple with moderate force, and it was enough to knock him out.

'Good,' I thought 'Now to carry out with the rest of the plan' I quickly evacuated the cell, and avoided the sights of the camera, sitting in the blind spots.

I then climbed into the air vent, and started my journey to the surface. Halfway through my ascent however, alarms started blaring around me, I had to improvise with something quickly, I heard footsteps in the distance coming toward me. I quickened my ascension, but the stress is starting to get to me, I am thinking that I'm not going to make it out.

Suddenly, as I am on basement level one, a trap door in the vent falls through, and I fall to the floor with a huge thump.

'I'm pretty sure I broke a rib there. Crap' I thought

I then started running, and found another air vent that I could climb. I finally got to the surface, and the alarms were still blaring.

I finally got to the surface! I bolted and was running toward some foliage to hide myself. Unfortunately for me it was fall, and the trees and bushes were barren.

-Current time-

My head was ringing, after all the sirens during my escape from the facility. I escaped the facility, but I had a problem, there was no one else around, and I was struggling with my mental facilities at the moment, as they needed to be replenished by food. Since I have not eaten in twenty-four hours, this could be considered a problem. I suddenly heard barking in the distance, it sounds like they released some hounds to help find me.

I ran, as fast as I could, toward the west, using the sun as my guide since I knew it was the early morning. Unfortunately, on my way out, I tripped on a root, that's right, a root.

'How could I let this happen?!'

The guards and their attack dogs found me.

"There!" they yelled out

'Bugger, I am screwed.'

I closed my eyes, put my hands out, and felt a twist in my gut, I felt a rush of power in my hands and when I took a peek out of my eyes, I saw the most amazing thing.

The Dobermans and their handlers were floating there, in the middle of the forest! I processed the information I had, and looked down at my hands, as there were slight distortions in the air around them. I then slammed my hand down, knocking all of the dogs and humans unconscious.

'So I have gravitational manipulation. This could be beneficial in the future'

I quickly decided to scarper and I used the powers of gravity on myself, enabling me to fly, and try to find the closest town to "civilization". Unfortunately, since I couldn't get control that quickly, I literally crashed into the tree line several miles out.

"Crap!"

-Bayville, New York-

**-Charles POV-**

"_Ororo! Logan! Prep the Blackbird!" _said a man in the minds of his friends and staff called Charles Xavier. Even though it was quite early in the morning, he was very excited, as this might possibly be the first student of his new institute. He was currently testing out Cerebro, and found quite possibly a powerful mutant with the new machine.

"_Chuck, its 4:30 in the morning what is so urgent that we need to get the blackbird ready?" _thought the man named Wolverine, who was a short man with blue hair, a scruffy, and tough exterior.

"_I have just discovered the location of a mutant, he has just activated his powers recently, and it looks like he is in trouble!"_ was the message that Charles broadcasted all over the household.

"_We're on it professor!" _called Storm, a beautiful woman of African descent, in her home continent of Africa she was worshipped as a goddess. She was also intelligent, learning over five languages over the course of her life so far.

The Blackbird was prepped very quickly, and they were off, trying to find their first student for their institution.

"Professor, where is the boy located?" asked Storm

"He was heading west in a deserted area of New Mexico, he was traveling quite quickly for a while, but then he suddenly stopped for some reason." replied the Professor.

-Two Hours Later-

**-Derek POV-**

My head was throbbing. 'What the hell happened?! Oh wait, it's coming back to me, I remember crashing into a tree… Because of my gravitational manipulation… huh'

'Looks like I have another skill to work on and improve. What's that black speck in the distance? It seems like a plane. It doesn't look affiliated with any government I know of… Is that a blackbird?!'

It then landed about 100 yards in front of me, and it shocked me that the landing was vertical.

'Quite an amazing feat of engineering.'

My mind started gathering data and information from observation, trying to figure out how the mechanisms on the blackbird worked. Unfortunately for me, I got distracted, and three people came out of the plane, one man in a wheel chair, and his two companions were walking toward me.

For some reason one of them looked quite familiar, but I couldn't place the resemblance.

'They probably came from the facility, to bad I am out of energy at the moment and cannot do anything.'

**-Charles POV-**

I took one look at this kid, and I knew he had a rough time. He looked disheveled in his one-piece uniform with the number 002 stitched on it. He had bruises all over his body, and he looked extremely weak and thin, probably due to an insufficient diet. Maybe we can convince him to come to the institute and become an X-man.

I tried reading his thoughts, and that was a big mistake. I suddenly felt a lot of pain due to my mind trying to process all the information going on in his head at the moment. I clutched my head and nearly blacked out, but I pulled out at the last minute, and with several shaky breaths, I recovered my composure and looked at the boy.

"What did you do to him Bub?!" Wolverine yelled at the mysterious child.

"_I'm fine Logan, I just got a little read of his mind" _Charles Xavier told his friend telepathically.

I noticed the boy's eyebrow rise for a second and then he adopted a look of amusement on his face.

"You're a telepath, did you just attempt to read my mind?" asked the boy,

Both of my eyebrows rose and I replied, "Yes, unfortunately I was trying to read your thoughts and unfortunately got caught in your mind."

The boy started chuckling and told us "The last time something tried to read my mind, lets just say it wasn't pretty."

I looked on with some amusement on my face. "What is your name child?"

"My name is Derek Goddart,"

"A pleasure Derek, my name is Charles Xavier and on my left I have Ororo Monroe, codenamed "Storm" and on my right I have Logan Howlett codenamed "Wolverine". We have a proposal for you."

The boy looked at us with a cocked eyebrow, and with a slight look of curiosity etched on his face. "What is this proposal sir?"

"We have a new institute for "gifted students" and we want to train you how to use your mutation for the good of humanity. We will also give you a formal education and you will actually be the first student in this school. What are your powers?"

"My is accelerated, so it can process information very quickly… Right now my mind can process things at maybe four times the speed of the average human, and it also allows me to use a higher percentage of my brain. I just discovered today that I can also manipulate gravity. I have two questions for you about the proposal. Do I have to pay any tuition? And will I be fed?" Derek asked.

"The institute will help you pay for everything and you will be fed… why did you ask that?"

"I am an orphan, unfortunately my parents died in a car crash, and I was thrown onto the street by my aunt, because she saw me as a freak due to my eyes. The only way for me to earn money at the time was to hack into bank accounts because I was desperate. I was then captured by a facility that then proceeded to experiment on me for the next two years!" Replied Derek.

I was shocked and I looked over at Storm, who had a look of sadness and slight anger. And then I looked at Wolverine, who had a look of absolute rage. His claws came out in his anger.

"Where?" he asked in a dangerously calm voice.

"I think about twenty miles east," the boy pointed behind Wolverine. "I take it you were experimented on as well, Mr. Logan?" Derek looked at Wolverine with a sense of pity and understanding in his eyes, he looked like he could relate to the current x-man.

"Take me there! Now!" yelled Wolverine.

Before we could leave however, I asked Derek, "Will you take us up on our offer?"

Derek looked at us for a couple of seconds, and then with a nod of his head, follows us onto the Blackboard.

On the way for the facility, I noticed the boy looking around the Blackbird with a deep interest; he probably already processed some of the functions and how they work.

"You know one day you might be able to pilot this Jet." I told him.

Derek looked at me and raised, an eyebrow, and then he cracked a sly smile, "I have a feeling that this institute is just the thing I need." He then continued his observations around the cockpit.

I hid my awe on the inside because quite frankly, I was floored; he literally took a look at the jet for five minutes and already came up with an idea that took me years to develop.

We arrived at the predestined coordinates given to us by Derek, and we found the base, however, it was emptied out before we could do anything.

There was a setback due to the fact that Wolverine saw the tank where the girl was located, and he slashed it relentlessly.

Derek was staring wide eyed at Wolverine, and especially the claws. Even though he is eleven years old, he is really insightful.

"Excuse me Professor, but why did Wolverine attack that tank relentlessly?"

"Well, his memories have disappeared, but he remembers a tank they put him in where they coated his bones with Adamantium. It was a very painful operation both physically and mentally."

Derek looked at me wide eyed, before he slowed down his thoughts for me to process. I saw his memories, in which I saw a brown haired girl that looked strangely like Wolverine.

'This couldn't possibly be his child. Unless… they cloned him'

Derek and I looked at one another, and gave a slight nod, a silent agreement to both lookout for the girl on whatever missions we went on.

We then took the Blackbird back to New York, taking Derek to his new home in the process. He has gone through so much for someone who is so young. I know we can help him with both of his powers, and hopefully at the same time we can give him a new home and a new family.

CHAPTER 2

-Six Years Later-

**-Derek POV-**

My name is Derek Goddart and my life has changed significantly over the past six years. I am now seventeen years old. I am six foot five, and I have muscle definition, but not as much as a body builder, I have messy blonde hair with specialized contact lenses to change the color of my eyes due to their neon nature. I am a junior in high school with Scott and Jean. I have the knowledge to get at least two Doctorates in Computer Engineering and Physics. And I am trying to work on gaining the others at the moment in my spare time. It also helps when you only need two hours of sleep a night, and that number is currently dropping, surprisingly enough.

My gravitational powers have been improved tremendously. In fact, I use them to condition myself, increasing my durability, and strength. I can now lift a weight just under a ton due to my conditioning. My gravitational powers are increasing in skill like my mind. I can now make something weigh x100 Earth's gravity or earth's gravity, essentially antigravity.

I have trained myself and mastered several martial arts including karate, judo, aikido, krav maga, and even the keysi fighting method. Due to my accelerated mind, I can watch videos at an accelerated rate, meaning I can learn moves, ideas, facts, and knowledge of any type effortlessly. Let's just say Logan is kind of pissed at me for mastering all of this very quickly, and he is probably currently trying to create an unbeatable scenario in the danger room.

I met Scott a year after I arrived at the institute; he is a tall brown haired teen with ruby quartz sunglasses due to his mutation. Unfortunately, he can't stop his optic blasts by himself, although I am currently trying to work on a solution. He is quite a serious person, but can crack a joke once in a while. He always listens to professor, which isn't a bad thing, but at the same time he should try and form his own opinion about certain matters. I also found that he has a huge crush on Jean, the other student that arrived two years after him.

Jean Grey arrived two years after Scott, and was at first a little shy, but she was soon dubbed "Ms. Popular" due to her intelligence, natural sporting ability, charisma, confidence, and beauty. We have a sibling relationship, and we both look out for each other often. I talked with the professor about her "condition" or mental barriers because of the entity called Phoenix. He told me about this because he knew that my mind could not be read due to my accelerated mind. Apparently telepaths find my mind a nightmare to read because it is now nearly fifteen times faster than a normal human, as of now. At school she is on the soccer team, basketball team, and floor hockey team. She is also dating the schools quarterback Duncan Matthews, who really doesn't suit her all, but its her life, I have no say to it at all.

-Football Game-

**-Scott POV-**

I was sitting there watching the football game with my friends Paul and Derek. Paul was my normal friend, however, my other friend who, in many cases, I consider an older brother, was quite different. He is a mutant, like me, and we were some of Xavier's first students.

I noticed that our team scored the touchdown and we were winning by a significant margin, and I also spotted Jean, with her boyfriend Duncan Matthews, one of the biggest jerks on the planet. I looked away, and my eyes wandered until I saw a hand under the bleachers reaching for a wallet.

'Who is stealing all of these wallets?' I look over to Derek who looks at me, then back to the hand and then looks at Duncan and his friends heading to go under the bleachers.

Paul notices and asks "Whoa! That guy is stealing wallets, should we call the police?"

"Not yet, but keep that option open," I replied to Paul.

Derek and I gave each other a look and head down there to hopefully stop a confrontation.

'Looks like Tolansky's at it again…'

"Duncan, stop harassing Tolansky, this is an easy fix, the wallets are still here, and we can just get him to return the wallets."

"Yeah man, be cool, I'll return them" replied Tolansky in a shaky voice.

"Why do you care about Frog face Summers? I think my buds and I are going to squash this slimeball. So you and your stupid "sunglasses at night" can just bail, along with Mr. 'I can't play sports due to my condition'." Threatened Duncan.

Derek just started chuckling next to me; even I had to crack a laugh.

"Mr. 'I can't play sports due to my condition'? Is that really the best you could come up with Duncan? Because I really can't play sports due to my condition."

It's funny because Derek is one of the most popular kids in school, even more popular than Duncan. Apparently nearly all the girls find him attractive, he is the smartest person in the school by a long shot, and he helps tutor anyone who needs help. He is practically the "Mr. Nice Guy" of Bayville High. Believe me, if he could play sports, he would most likely wipe the floor with high school athletes.

Duncan then draws his fist back and tries to make an uppercut to my face; however, Derek catches it at the last minute. The fist was literally an inch away from my chin.

Derek glared at Duncan, and I saw some of the football player's shiver in fear. "That was unnecessary, now back off" Derek says in a cold voice. His eyes actually were glowing a little bit through the contact lenses.

Derek, Tolansky and I started walking out from under the bleachers to return the money to the spectators. I don't think Tolansky started running away because the two of us could handle him.

We turned our backs on Duncan, and that was a big mistake. I saw Jean toward the edge of the bleachers, I heard her say "Scott!" I felt a force push me down to the ground, and on my tumble, I lost my glasses, which then blasted a propane tank on the other side of the bleachers, causing an explosion. The stadium rocked back and forth and then stopped. All of the football players under the bleachers were knocked down due to the force of the explosion.

'Damn!'

**-Jean Grey POV-**

'Where did Duncan and his friends go?' I thought to myself, as I scanned the field, and the players by the coaches. They were not there… 'So where could they be?' I saw Derek and Scott head toward under the bleachers, so I decided to follow them and see what was going on at the moment.

By the time I got there, I saw Derek and Scott walking away with Tolansky, 'It looks like the issue has been settled…'

But then I saw something that shocked me, I saw Duncan was about to push Scott down to the ground.

"Scott!" I yelled, but it was to late, I saw the glasses come off, and the explosion. I helped Scott up and Derek looked at us, and we saw the ambulances in the distance.

I then helped the football players onto the field where people were laying out stretchers for the injured. I was standing next to Duncan for the next few minutes, conversing with some of the paramedics about what happened. Turns out they think it was just an explosion due to the mishap with the gas main.

'Thank you Professor Xavier' I thought to myself, this could have been a lot worse, and luckily we have a powerful telepath to help us.

I saw Duncan waking up; two paramedics came up to him, and helped him into an ambulance.

"Can't remember." I heard Duncan moan

"He has a concussion, and he's been hit hard." I heard the paramedic tell him while they were putting him in the ambulance.

"Duncan, are you all right?"

"Hey, Jean. Yeah, you know me. Skull like concrete."

"You poor baby. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sounds good Jean, I'll see you later."

The Next Morning

-Derek POV-

'Well, that was some fun last night, I bet the professor already knew it was Scott who accidently created the explosion.'

"Give it up, Jean." I heard Scott tell her through the bathroom door, "It's hopeless!"

'Well, this is going to be amusing.'

I heard a muffled sound through the door "I'll be done in a second." Well, I'm not going to argue with her, I learned the hard way that you don't mess with a telekinetic mutant. Lets just say I couldn't walk right for a week…

"Come on. We're gonna be late." I heard Scott yell through the door. I wonder when Jean is going to teach him a lesson about rushing her… He hasn't learned the hard way, yet.

'And I know why he hasn't learned the art of patience when it comes to Jean.'

"Almost done!" I heard through the door.

"Look, you want me to blow this door down or?..." Scott kind of drowned out when he saw Jean walk out.

"So are we going, or what?" She said this as her hand reached under Scotts chin and slowly pulled away toward the main hall.

I saw a goofy look on Scotts face as Jean walked away and I attempted to stifle a chuckle. Unfortunately for me, he noticed.

He gave me a hard look, the look that said "I will kill you if you say anything". But since it is just Scott, I had to make a comment.

"Not obvious at all mate" I say and chuckle as I catch up with Jean on our way to garage.

Scott caught up with us and as we are walking down the main staircase, he says, "We're heading out, professor."

"Just a moment, you three." We heard the professor yell from another wing of the institute. "Come here."

We soon walked down the hall toward the library, one of my favorite places to relax and study. However, I do hang out in my technology lab in the secret part of the institute. Lets just say once the professor realized how intelligent I really was, he decided to give me a lab in order to build things that would be beneficial to humanity and us. I even have some patents that earn me a lot of money and I even give half of the funds to the institute to help mutant kind, in anyway I can.

"I'd like you to meet someone." The professor told us, I noticed earlier that a boy in a hooded cover up similar to monks. I didn't see his face, as it was shadowed. I saw that he came in with the Professor and Ororo late last night when everyone was in bed. "This is Kurt Wagner and he arrived late last night. We picked up from the train station at about eleven."

"Hey, Kurt." We all chimed.

"This is Jean, and I'm Scott, and the really tall person is Derek." Scott told him. "How you doing?"

"Kurt, you're among friends here." The Professor told him a serious manner. I had my suspicions that he was chastised in his former location due to his mutation.

"Hello." I saw him shake Scotts hand. He had a look of shock, but quickly adjusted to it. Turns out Kurt had a blue fuzzy hand with three fingers. Honestly, people can be idiots at times. Chasing someone out of their home due to their appearance.

"I was just telling Kurt how I set up this institute for gifted youngsters whose gifts are not always an asset." The Professor told us, "Right, Scott?"

'Oh, here comes the ominous warning'

"So you heard about last night Professor?" Scott asked, I noticed he looked a little ashamed, as he did cause a lot of damage, although to be fair it wasn't his fault.

"Difficult not to. Especially when I was driving by when the explosion happened. It was also on all the news channels." The Professor said to Scott, who still looked slightly ashamed. So I decided to help him out a little bit, after all, Scott is one of my oldest friends.

"To be fair Professor, a rough tackle from behind would tend to be problematic, especially when you are packing heat behind special sunglasses."

'Hoped I could help him out a little bit.'

"It was a bad situation, and I should have reacted better. I'm sorry."

"I know. Fortunately, no one was badly hurt and the true cause was not discovered. But you must be more careful, Scott." The Professor chastised to Scott, Kurt I noticed still hasn't said anything, so I decided to talk to him for a little bit.

"Hey Kurt," I saw the hood turn toward me, and I saw two yellow eyes assessing me, "I may not know as much about being chastised by a community as you, but I know how you feel about hiding your appearance." He gave me another curious look, seemingly doubting my words. I let my eyes glow a lot more, so it actually looked like my eyes could light up a room in the dark. I saw a slight nod behind the hood, and gave him a slight smile. "Also, the Professor and I have a gift for you later" I told him and gave him a wink.

"Come on, professor! I'm packing a bazooka behind each eyeball! What do you want from me?" Kurt and I then looked over at the other conversation happening beside us.

"Control, Scott. That's what you're here to learn. That's why you're all here. Scott's eyes emit a destructive optic blast beam."

"Cool." I heard Kurt say as he ripped down the hood. He had a impish smile on his face, I then noticed the fuzz covered all of his body, and he had slightly larger canines than normal, just slightly larger though. He had blue covering his head in a similar hairstyle to Scott, except longer and a little more untamed. The thing that stuck out most however, was a blue tail shaped like a whip with a point at the end, it looked strong enough to use in a fight, and hang off the ceiling.

'Nifty.'

"How about you, Kurt? Got a special gift that brought you here?" Jean asked

"Maybe." He said, as he teleported across the room, it was a bright yellow flash, and then a sulfur type smell from where he teleported from.

'Interesting, maybe I can convince him to help me with some research into why his powers work, and maybe later on we could have teleportation commercially available in the next twenty years.'

"I'll be helping Kurt get settled in, so we can talk more tonight." The professor told us, so we left, Scott taking his car, a modified cobra to fit five people to school with Jean.

I soon followed on my American Harley Davidson XA, a motorcycle I restored myself from World War II. Logan was always quite jealous of me on that bike, and I also have a matching sidecar with it. However, the XA was just for getting to different places, for the dangerous stuff, let's just say I have my own special motorcycle that I am working on at the moment. Since I have a higher durability, I might as well pilot a motorcycle instead of a car; in fact, it's a lot more fun.

-Bayville High School, Principals Office-

**-Todd Tolansky POV-**

"Mr. Tolansky? Excuse me a moment while I open a window." Principal Darkholme said, as I sat down on the chair closest to her desk, with his legs on the chair, perched like a frog.

"Now, Toad, shall we talk about your new friend, Scott Summers?" Asked Principal Darkholme

"What about him? He's cool. Heck, if it wasn't for him, them jocks would've stomped my skull flat." I said, thinking that if Derek were not there, things could have been even worse.

'I wonder what those Jocks would have done to me if it were not for those two.'

"Yes."

"Well, Summers, as you've noticed, has special powers. There are others like him. We need to know more, much more. Oh, look. There he is now." We both looked out the window to see Scott get out of his convertible with Jean Grey, Mrs. 'I'm the most popular teenager in junior year'. After he parked, the spot next to him was taken by an old, but refurbished bike that looked over fifty years old.

I looked back to the Principal and told her "I really don't wanna." What she said next shocked and scared me so much I nearly peed myself. I turned behind me and I saw a giant blue creature with sharp teeth and huge claws.

"Silence! You'll do as you're told! Understand?!"

-Back at the Mansion-

**-Kurt POV-**

"This bedroom is mine?" I asked, as I looked around and saw a bed, desk, and a substantial amount of floor space around.

"Of course, Kurt." The professor responded. "That's why your parents sent you to us.

They knew you would be happy here."

"Happy? How can I be happy when I look like this? I scare people." I looked down at my hands, and saw my three fingers, reminding me that I will always be different from anyone else.

"Derek and I have a surprise for you, Kurt. Put this on."

I looked at it curiously, it looked just like a normal watch, 'How was this supposed to help me?' I was kind of annoyed with Derek, as he told me earlier he had something that could help me out, a lot.

As soon as I put on the watch though, I looked up into the mirror, and was shocked to see a Caucasian with blue hair staring right back at me, I even looked down and discovered that my hands had five fingers. I was speechless, and I couldn't believe it! I was normal! 'How did the professor and Derek develop this?'

"I don't believe it! I'm normal!" I yelled, extremely excited about this new machine that will change my life.

"Of course you're normal, Kurt. But not because of that machine." Said Ororo as she walked into the room, hearing the commotion from the hallway.

"Storm is right, Kurt. Normal is what you truly are. Never think otherwise. This is just a disguise. A disguise so that you'll not be persecuted by those who do not understand your gifts." The professor told me, and I took these words to heart, knowing that this institute will change my life forever.

"I understand, professor. But nonetheless, you and Derek rule!"

The Professor and Ororo cracked a smile, and then left the room, I noticed a box on the far side of my desk, and decided to open it. Looks like I am going to become an X-man now!

-Bayville High School-

**-Scott POV-**

I was just walking up to my locker after AP Calculus, I don't know how Derek found that subject, how did he say it 'Elementary', it can be quite difficult at times. I just arrived at my locker and saw Paul and Derek conversing with one another, I had a locker in between them.

"Hey, see you in the cafeteria." said Paul

"I'm just grabbing my lunch." I told him, "Oh, save me and Derek a seat!" I saw Derek get his huge lunch out of his locker, I don't know how he can consume so much, but whenever I ask him, he just points at his head and chuckles.

"Yo, Summers. What's up?" I heard, was that Tolansky, I turn to my right, and there was Tolansky, I saw Derek standing a little behind me. We both noticed that the halls were all empty, so we were in the clear.

"That's quite a jump." I told Toad, as I noticed he effortlessly jumped to the top of the lockers. Derek raised an eyebrow, but didn't give anything away, as usual.

"Like it? Surprised you could see it through them smokies of yours." Toad told me, and what he did next surprised me. "Here, let me help." He quickly stuck out his whip like tongue and attempted to steal my ruby quartz shades that allow me to look around with out blowing everything up. Fortunately, I had Derek and his inhuman reflexes with me at the moment.

As soon as Tolansky started to put his tongue out, Derek jumped in front of me and grabbed the tongue before it reached my shades.

"Not a good idea, Tolansky" he told him, while giving him a slight glare. He then let his tongue go, and said "You can handle this Scott."

He then turned around and left, probably to start eating, as he has a monster appetite compared to everyone else.

"What's the matter, Summers? Afraid to open your eyes?" Tolansky taunted

"Obviously we both know what'll happen if I do. If you took my shades I might've gone nuclear on you."

"Hehe, oops." He responded, in an attempted innocent tone, although I knew differently. He attempted to steal my shades again, but I was ready this time, and blocked his tongue.

"Well, as you can see, you and me, we got something in common." He said in a nonchalant fashion, as if we are discussing the weather with one another.

"Yeah, now we're both slimy." I said, trying to find a way to wipe the slime off my hand before I went off to lunch.

"No. I mean, we ain't like other people." He told me.

"So, what's your point?" I gave him a look that kind of said 'no shit Sherlock'.

"I just want to talk. "You know, get to know each other better. You know, maybe do lunch." He told me, and right after he said that, snatched up my lunch and ate the whole thing. There was then a slight pause.

"I'll think about it." If Professor Xavier wanted me to, I would be willing to do it, even if it was, an extremely slimy meal. Luckily I suppressed a shudder, and Tolansky didn't notice.

"Sure. You think about it, Summers. I got other stuff to do." He then hopped off down the hall toward the cafeteria, in the fashion of a frog.

'Looks like Derek's going to have to give up some of his food now, I'm not sure he'll be to happy with that.'

-Xavier Institute-

I was sitting down reading a new psychology written by one of my former classmates at Harvard, it was a book Binding information in short-term memory: evidence from healthy individuals, Alzheimer's Disease and other clinical populations. As I was reading, however, a red alarm started blaring, and the wall with an ancestral portrait, opened up revealing a machine that could detect mutants all over the world. I noticed there was a dot that popped up at Bayville High School.

'It must be a new signature, and he must be openly using his powers now'

"So, out in the open."

_Ring, Ring,_

"Hello, Scott." I didn't tell the students how I knew who it was when people called me, but I have a feeling Derek knew as he always laughed when they asked him about it, sometimes that teenager is to smart for his own good.

"_Man, professor. You know it always weird's me out when you do that."_

"Sorry Scott." I told him as I was typing out instructions for Cerebro. "What are you calling about?"

"_One of the students here, he's kind of like us."_

"Yes. Todd Tolansky." I told him over the phone,

"_You know him? _

"Cerebro just got a reading."

"_He must be using his powers openly now._ _Anyway, he's not the kind of guy I'd want to share a room with. I mean, to put it bluntly, he's got the personal hygiene of a dead pig."_

"We cannot turn our backs on anyone, Scott. You know that." 'There are already few of us as is, and everyone needs at least some training to control their powers.'

"_Yeah, I know. So should I bring him in?" _

"No need, Scott. I'll speak with you later." I hung up the phone and I saw that Kurt just entered the room without his watch and in his new x-men uniform. 'Good, he is coming out of his shell and is realizing that we don't care about his appearance.'

"What's that thing, professor?" He asked, pointing at Cerebro, the crown jewel of the institute, thought of by me, but Derek improved the processing speed, I don't know how, but he did.

"This 'thing' is Cerebro. It detects the manifestation of special powers. That's how I found you." I told him while I was typing up some more instructions, still searching for mutants out there.

"So this guy is one of us?" He asked, genuine curiosity laced in his voice, it sounds like he wants to bond with people like him, people who have to worry about appearances.

"That remains to be seen." I told him, contemplating on what our next move should be involving Todd Tolansky.

I quickly mentally called Storm with my telepathy.

"_Storm?" _

"_Yes, professor?" _

"_I wonder if you could audition someone for me."_

Later that Evening…

**-Derek POV-**

I was sitting down in the main hall, just sitting there enjoying a book on the latest subject I was studying, geophysics, and then I planned on studying materials engineering and then mechanical engineering, I actually just finished my studies on aeronautical engineering nearly a month ago, so I've actually started a project quite recently.

Like Kurt, I have a special watch, except it doesn't have a image inducer in it. In fact, it essentially has a computer connected up to the mansion. It recorded a perimeter breach. I raised an eyebrow, 'who would try and break into the mansion?' I saw Nightcrawler coming down the stairs, and then I saw lightning, and then I instantly knew this was a test. I then saw my answer, as it came crashing through the door crashing into Nightcrawler. Turns out Todd Tolansky has the x-gene. 'Huh, looks like my suspicions are confirmed.'

"Whoa, what are you? Some kind of ratty plush toy?" I overheard Toad asking Nightcrawler with a slightly hostile tone.

"The name's Nightcrawler, and at least I don't reek like unwashed lederhosen." Nightcrawler told Toad, which I had to chuckle at, as it was entirely true.

"You blue-furred freak!" And Todd launched out and attempted to attack Nightcrawler, but he teleported away, leaving a dumbfounded Todd.

"As you say in America: neener, neener, neener!" He said from the ceiling, with an impish smirk on his face, almost asking for trouble.

I heard a primal growl from Todd, "That ain't gonna help you, boy."

"You're so slow! - You couldn't catch flies on a windshield." And then I saw some amazing acrobatics, as the two were jumping around on the walls, and I was quite surprised when Nightcrawler was completely upside down on the ceiling. At least Nightcrawler was staying ahead of Todd.

I looked over by the hallway, and I saw Professor X watching them. He looked at me and gave me a slight nod; I turned to look at my watch, which actually tells time as well. Turns out it is 19:54, nearly time for training! So I head down the hallway, avoiding the commotion flying around me.

I enter the elevator and travel down to the secret basement. I enter the changing room and saw that I was the first one there, so I quickly put on my X-men uniform. I was actually the first person to design and create my own costume, due to me being at the institute the longest.

It was completely black, and had an overcoat, which went up to the middle of my neck, and it was buttoned down to my waist, and there was a tail at the end of it that reached to the edge of my combat boots. I wore black military pants. The final part of my costume was black sunglasses, which covered just enough of my face to throw people off my identity, and also to hide my neon eyes. The only thing that was not black on the costume was a patch on my left side, which was a red "X" surrounded by a red circle, the basic symbol of the X-men. Since it was black, it blended well into the nighttime environment, and was made of a flexible material that allowed me to use my agility and martial arts to their fullest effect.

It was really funny when we all revealed our costumes to one another, because Jean and Scott didn't want to design their costumes, so the professor made their uniforms. Let's just say they were a little jealous when they saw mine, but theirs were also more suited toward their powers.

Jean and Scott then walked in, and while they were changing we conversed about our day, and school rumors, no matter how sad they are, apparently Jeans friends were jealous of her living with Scott and I, who apparently were "hotties" we both just laughed it off.

Suddenly the alarms started blaring and the Professors voice came over the intercom.

"_Scott! Jean! Derek! Nightcrawler and Toad have teleported into the Danger Room!"_

We all looked at one another, and Scott, now 'Cyclops' voiced our concern nearly immediately, "Oh, man! The Danger Room has automated defenses! It'll attack them with everything it's got!"

"_Get in there now!"_

The three of us entered the danger room, to see the room fighting Nightcrawler and Todd with everything it's got, there were lasers shooting everywhere, giant scissors trying to cut everyone in half. And even walls that trap people and attempt to crush them.

The room was in chaos, but Cyclops made up our plans quickly.

"I've got the Cannons!" I heard Cyclops yell followed by Jean,

"I'll keep them clear of the tentacles." I saw as she floated away with her telekinesis, which isn't true flight unfortunately; but close enough. I can fly, by decreasing my gravity, believe it or not. I have been training my powers for nearly seven years now, so I am quite experienced now, my days crashing into trees however only ended about four years ago.

"I'll stop the giant scissors!" I increased the gravity on the scissors and they hit the ground with a "THUNK!" and I attempted to assist Jean with the tentacles. I overheard their amusing conversation after she rescued him.

"Are you an angel?" I heard Nightcrawler asked Jean, who cracked a smile and replied by saying,

"On occasion. How about you? Are you a demon?"

I looked over and saw Todd about to be crushed by two walls; luckily Scott shot a well aimed optic blast to destroy one of the walls.

I was getting slightly strained, simply from the number of giant scissors and tentacles I was trying to control. I looked up to the observation centre and saw the Professor and Storm enter.

"_Danger Room, Priority X, Command: Shutdown. Voice print: Charles Xavier."_ I heard over the loud speakers, followed by a swift

"_Confirmed. Shut down in five seconds."_ This coming from the computer I designed, I should program it to go faster than this, five seconds can change a situation drastically.

I soon overheard Nightcrawler, "Now I get it. It's a training area. Watch. I just pull the plug and AHHH!" The machine freaked out and flung Nightcrawler across the room, and was again swiftly caught by Jean's telekinesis. Storm then flew into the danger room and blasted the laser turret with her lightning.

"Forget this, man. I've seen enough. I am out of here." Todd yelled frantically, as he hopped down the hall into the elevator, out of sight.

"Tolansky!... Sorry, professor. I couldn't stop him." Scott yelled, looking disappointed that he couldn't accomplish his "mission" of recruiting Todd.

"It's all right, Cyclops. He wasn't ready to be one of us." The Professor reassured him, and I nodded as well, Todd wasn't ready for the X-men. I noticed Nightcrawler had a pained and sad look on his face.

"I blew it too, professor, I'm sorry. You've been wonderful, but I guess I just don't belong here." Nightcrawler told us, and as soon as he finished, he left with a "Bamf"

"_Nightcrawler, wait!"_ I heard the Professor yell over the intercoms, but it was no use, he was to late.

"No sweat, professor. I'll take care of it." Scott said as he left the room,

I looked around and told everyone, "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my lab working on another one of my projects." Jean then followed me out, curious as to what I was working on now. What she didn't know was that I needed to go to the hangar and work on my newest project…

-Outside the Mansion-

**-Wolverine POV-**

After reading that Newspaper article, I decided to come back to the mansion, and stay here to help train the current group, maybe spar with Derek, he is the only one that can keep up with me at the moment. Hopefully the others will improve drastically soon. I park my motorcycle next to Derek's WWII refurbished motorcycle, which I get a nostalgic feeling every time I look at it,

'I must be pretty old to have nostalgic feelings about a bike from World War II'.

I then noticed on my way to the door that someone bumped into me, he looked up at me, and I decided to put my hand up to my face and, "SHING" release my adamantium claws.

"Going somewhere, bub?" I asked him in a threatening voice.

"_No, Logan. Let him go."_ I heard in my mind from Chuck, the kid looked like he would piss himself if I didn't stop, so I stepped aside and let the little runt go.

"_I came back here because I smelled trouble brewing." _I told Chuck through my mind, knowing that he has established telepathic contact. _"Of course, maybe it was just stink boy there."_

"_I wish it was."_ I heard Chuck reply in my head, and he cracked a smile and said from the balcony, "Welcome home, old friend. We've missed you."

-Hangar under the mansion-

**-Nightcrawler POV-**

I needed to get out of here, so I teleported into the room next door to the danger room, which was a hangar bay. The first thing that caught my eye was a large black jet that looked sleek, and very fast. I heard a voice behind me and quickly turned to see Scott.

"The SR-77 Blackbird. Twice as fast as the SR-71 and with three times the range and firepower. It's nice, eh?" Scott said, as he looked the plane, pride is laced in his voice.

"Is it yours? Please tell me you get to fly it." I asked him, excited about the prospect of possibly piloting this awesome machine!

"It's ours." Scott told me.

'Yes! The answer I wanted to hear.' I thought.

"If you stick around for a while, Derek and I will show you how to pilot this bad boy.

So, what do you say? You want to be part of our team?"

I thought about it, and I was a little unsure about myself for a little bit. "Me? I almost got you killed a few minutes ago."

Scott clearly knows how I am feeling at the moment; he has the look in his posture, wonder what he did? Scott enlightened me "Yeah. Don't do that again. But look, we all mess up sometimes. I know I do. That's why we're all here, to learn not to make mistakes like that. That's why we'd like you to stay."

"And you don't mind the way I look?" I was very self-conscious due to the reactions people have given me over the years.

"Dude, just don't hassle me about my shades, and make sure you don't make fun of Derek's eyes, and we'll call it even." I knew Derek and Scott meant the best, and it sounds like they don't care with appearances at all. They were even willing to let Tolansky on the team, and look at him!

"We have a deal then." I told him.

"Welcome to the team." He said, holding out his hand, which I shook happily.

"Come on, I'll show you where they hide the sodas." And we started to walk out of the room.

We then heard a voice from the other side of the hangar, "I hope you guys don't find my stash! I have found a place where no one will ever look!" I was wondering what was going on, and then Scott laughed, and said, they're behind the Tofu Pops in the fridge of the garage, right?"

Derek, who was for some reason in a lab coat, rushed over to the door at a speed I would have never expected and shouted "Crap!" and ran out of the hangar quickly, I think he might try to find another hiding spot for his soda stash.

I looked at Scott, hoping to get an answer out of him, and I did. "Derek has an accelerated metabolism, so he needs a LOT of calories in order to function. He also LOVES his soda. In fact, you two are probably going to get along swimmingly, if you have the same eating habits."

I grinned, and then asked, "What was he working on while we were talking in here?"

Scott raised an eyebrow, and said, "We should probably ask him because I don't know…"

-Bayville High School-

**-Mystique POV-**

"I can't believe this! You were actually inside and you ran away?!" I yelled at Tolansky, who in my opinion was a bottom feeder and quite pathetic. He had no motivation and could care less about anything.

"Hey, I freaked. So sue me. I did what I could." Toad told me, a little freaked out about his past ordeal.

"And no doubt the good professor wiped your mind so you can't remember anything! Get out!" I yelled, furious at his failure, this was a good opportunity to see what the professor was working on.

Suddenly, the building started shaking, and I fell down. Everything magnetic started to float around, and I knew what was about to come. "Do not be so hard on the boy, Mystique. We don't want to thin our ranks, now, do we?" I heard, from a cold voice and when I looked over I saw Magneto, in all of his glory, his red and purple metal armor with his signature helmet.

"No, sir. I'll be more careful." I responded, I wasn't truly scared, but I know that Magneto is a force to be reckoned with.

"Mind you are. Remember, this is only the beginning." He told me. I then looked over at the chair that Todd sat down on earlier before he left the office. I saw there was a small flashing red light, which took me a second to process, but I then realized it was a recording device.

'Damn you Xavier!'

**The psychology book was actually a Ph. D thesis by Rodríguez, Mario and Alfredo, Parra from the University of Edinburgh in 2009, I thought it would be something that would fascinate the professor, considering his powers are telepathy.**

**I also kind of used Neo's costume… because you have to admit it is kind of badass, and with gravitational control and martial arts, its pretty sick hehe. Derek could actually deliver flying kicks and stop bullets in mid air with his antigravity.**

**Please leave reviews in ways I could improve my writing skills, character development, plot, etc. I know that I need to start adding more details, thats something I think would help at times. And if you write a "flame" about the story, I really don't care, I'm just writing this for fun because I was bored. I know I am not a great writer...**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own X-men Evolution. It is owned by Marvel, which is now a part of Disney now. **

- Northbrook, Illinois -

-**Kitty Pryde POV-**

My name is Kitty Pryde, I am sixteen years old, and I am what people would call a 'valley-girl'. I am about 5'6, and have brown hair that I normally keep in a ponytail. I am actually quite intelligent for a person my age; I really enjoy computer science, and study it by myself. I just don't like to show it because for some reason a lot of guys in High School are jerks and don't like intelligent girls. But since I want to fit in, I make myself look dumb, even though I have an "A+" in all of my classes, except for P.E… Anyways, I like to think of myself as a caring and sympathetic individual.

I was actually dreaming at the moment about flying through the air, what an awesome power that would be! But I suddenly started falling, and then I fell straight through a building! What am I doing! Wake up!

I suddenly woke up, I was flustered, like every dream turned into a nightmare, and then I looked down, why was I on the concrete floor of my, basement?

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and I saw that it was my parents coming down the stairs, after they heard my scream; they were probably concerned about me, "What happened? Were you sleepwalking?"

I had no logical explanation for this, so I just decided to say it as it was. "No. I fell. I just I fell through the ceiling." I was panicking, trying to come up with why I was in the basement.

"Now, now, dear. I'm sure you were just having a nightmare." My parents were looking at me with deep concern, they wanted to help me, but didn't know how to do it.

"I don't think so. What am I? What's happening to me?" I was slightly frustrated, I still had no reason to be in the basement, or why I got here. I then looked up, and I saw something that shocked me to the core, my comforter I was sleeping with was half way through the ceiling, and I did the only thing that I could think of, I screamed.

My parents comforted me for about half an hour and then got a new comforter, and then I went back to bed, not wanting to confront anyone about this new predicament in my life.

My alarm went off at the usual time, and I decided to get up and go to school like normal, I needed a semblance of order in my life at the moment. I walked down the stairs and saw my mom in the kitchen, 'Hopefully she can help me get out of the house today.'

"Dear? I thought we agreed you were staying home today." My mom still looked a little concerned, it must have been rough for them last night.

I really wanted to get out of the house at the moment, so I told her, "Yeah, well, like, what's the point? You guys don't want to talk about it. And I'll go crazy sitting around here!" It was a low move, but I had to do it.

"But should you really be at school?" My mom had a look of contemplation on her face, I don't believe it, she was really considering it!

"Kitty! Honey, where are you?" I heard Dad yelling from his upstairs office.

"Please, Mom. Dad will make me stay." I gave her a pleading look; I really didn't want to stay at home right now.

"All right. Go on."

'Yes! The presence of normality, now to continue my day as normal.'

-Xavier Mansion-

-Several hours ago-

**-Derek POV-**

I was in the library at the moment, reading a book on aeronautical engineering, see, I was trying to solve a problem I was having with the frame of a new aircraft I was constructing in the hangar. I would normally read and work in the technology lab, but Xavier had a huge library to browse… might as well use the resources at my disposal.

Since two hours of sleep is all I really need, I go to bed with everyone else and then wake up just two hours later.

I was just about to give up and think about it later, and then I saw the professor wheel into the room and roll toward Cerebro. I think he and Logan are the only ones that know I only need two hours of sleep at the moment. It's quite amusing because Jean and Scott cannot figure out how I get so much done in the lab. The Professor only really needs five hours of sleep, due to his mental facilities, and Logan is like me, he hardly needs any sleep if doesn't want to, due to his accelerated healing factor.

Anyways, I said "Good Morning Professor." When he wheeled in, he turned to me, and smiled.

I probably know him best, well, out of the students at the institute. This is probably due to the fact I have been at the institute the longest. We share some similar interests, and we have done some science projects together to expand the institute. Although the person who probably gets me best is Logan, we share lots of similarities, which include a drive to push ourselves, muddled pasts, and he also makes a good sparring partner for training. But I think the activity we connect over is fixing up cars, motorcycles, and he is even helping me with the new aircraft. Who knew Logan was an awesome mechanic?

He then asked me, a wry grin on his face, "Derek, what are you doing up so early?"

I responded, chuckling, "I could ask the same with you Professor." We both shared a grin and slight laugh.

I saw the Professor hook himself up to Cerebro, to see if there are any new mutants that have been revealed over the past day. I looked at the clock and it was about 3:30, I then overheard Cerebro state "_Discovery. Mutant signature."_

I heard the Professor mutter, "The second detection in this vicinity."

"_Extrapolation complete. Identity confirmed. Name: Kitty Pryde. Residence: Northbrook._

_Age: 16."_

Charles turned to me, and told me to "Prep the Blackbird."

'To bad I'm not done with the new aircraft yet…'

-Several Hours Later in the Blackbird-

**-Derek POV-**

I was sitting in the blackbird, piloting it on the way to Illinois, the professor was sitting in the co-pilots seat, and Jean sat a little behind us. It's funny because Scott and I are the 'designated pilots' at the moment. We have a friendly rivalry when it comes to piloting, because we are both quite good at it, he just has a natural talent for it while my mind can register things quickly, enabling me to have inhuman reflexes while we fly.

Jean decided to ask us a question while we are piloting the jet, "Why us? Why not everyone at the Institute?"

"Because Jean, you're the one who can connect with this girl. Derek, you'll have to try and bond with the boy." The professor responded.

'Lovely, today is going to be quite interesting.' I thought to myself.

"I hope I can do it." Replied Jean, still looking unsure about herself. I decided to her out a little bit.

"Jean, between the two of us we have been at the institute for ten years, you'll be great. I know this is your first recruitment mission, but you'll be fine."

Jean looked over at me, and smirked "Yeah, because obviously the only reason I wanted to join the institute was because I would see your beautiful mug everyday."

I mock gasp, "Oh how you hurt me Jean." I place a hand over my head in an exaggerated fashion, pretending to be in distress.

She stifles a giggle, as the professor looks on in amusement. The Professor then decides to continue the conversation about the 'mission'.

"I'd like you both to focus on Kitty's parents. Remember, you're models of what we're offering them. No pressure." The Professor told us, a slight grin on adorned on his face.

"And to think I passed up a nice, relaxing midterm for this." Jean muttered under her breath.

"Oh come on Jean, we all know what you would've gotten on that midterm, obviously a zero…" I then felt a telekinetic slap on the back of my head, but I didn't feel it as much because of my increased durability due to training. I chuckled as we started our descent into the airport.

-An Hour Later-

**-Derek POV-**

We pulled up to a house in the suburbs, it looked quite large, it was a yellow board, with a decent sized porch. I got out Charles' wheelchair from the back of the X-van, and lifted him into it. The three of us shared a look, and then we proceeded to the bottom of the stairs. I looked around, seeing if anyone else was around, and giving her a slight nod, she used her telekinesis to lift his wheelchair onto the porch.

Everyone was wearing their normal outfit, except I didn't want to put in my colored contacts, so I decided to put on a pair of special glasses to cover up my eyes. They cover up my eyes, as well, and well, this is a kind of field test. I literally completed them a week ago. We all looked at each other and nodded. I rung the doorbell, and stood back behind the professor, on a lower stair to help hide my height and make myself look less imposing.

We were greeted at the door by a middle aged couple, the woman had wavy brown hair and blue eyes while the father had graying hair and hazel eyes, he also wore a pair of glasses and had a Balbo facial beard that was also graying.

They were the first ones to start the conversation. "Hi, how can we help you?"

The Professor was always the most diplomatic of us, no matter how hard we tried, so we let him talk first. "Hello, my name is Charles Xavier, and we are here to discuss Kitty's, new situation."

"What are you talking about? How do you know Kitty?" Mrs. Pryde asked frantically

"Please, may we come in for a moment? We'll answer all your questions." Jean was trying to be as diplomatic as possible, but she was cut off by Mr. Pryde.

"Excuse me, miss. You can talk to us out here."

"Very well." The Professor replied, "I think you know Kitty is going through a very unique transition at the moment. We simply want to help her through it."

I decided at that moment to lower my glasses a little bit so they could see my neon green eyes. I could tell they saw the glowing irises, since they tensed up almost immediately.

I quickly realized my mistake, "My apologies Mr. and Mrs. Pryde, I didn't mean to startle you."

"Why don't you tell us about last night?" The Professor asked nicely, showing genuine concern for the family.

"Last night is none of your business! Please, just leave us alone." The man said as he and his wife went back inside and shut the door.

"Next time let's just call and get hung up on. Less hassle." Said Jean, I chuckled, and decided to say

"If that were the same case with you would wouldn't have seen my beautiful face when we picked you up." I told Jean, a cheeky grin on my face.

"Shut up!" I heard her say, in a friendly way, and we then turned to the professor. Letting him make up the plans.

"You'll need to make contact with Kitty directly, at her school." Replied the Professor, he then turned to me, "and hopefully you will run into Lance there as well."

-Xavier Mansion-

**-Wolverine POV-**

Here I was, cleaning my new motorcycle, it is a fairly newer model, enjoying my time alone with the machine. Derek and I do enjoy working on our vehicles together.

'I wonder when he will get back so we can work on the aircraft in the hangar…'

There was a small gust of wind, but I caught a scent I haven't smelled in a while. I instantly knew who it was. "Sabretooth." I growled.

I then changed into my X-men costume, and got on my newly polished motorcycle, and sped off, in a search for my biggest rival, one who could also threaten the institute if left unchecked.

I sped out of the institute; I noticed the Elf and Scott looking at me when I sped past.

'Hope they know not to follow me' I thought to myself.

-Deerfield High School-

**-Kitty Pryde POV-**

I was just sorting out my locker, putting my books away and pulling out a duffel bag with my uniform in it.

I overheard two voices that I dreaded hearing; they are the bane of my life in high school so far.

"Riley, check the Kitty pity party." Amy told her friend.

"She is obviously dreading PE." Said Riley, a relentless bully who attempted to hurt me in anyway, shape or form most of the time.

"Probably the only class she's not acing."

"Let's give her some time off."

I overheard this small conversation, as I was still sorting out my locker,

'What do they mean by "Let's giver her some time off?..."

I didn't notice them come up behind me, and shove me into my own locker.

'I guess that is what they meant by "Let's giver her some time off."

I heard Riley through the slits of my locker, "World closing in on you, Kitty?"

"Hey! Let me out, you jerks! Open this door! Somebody open this door!"

I kept on pounding the locker door, and I heard someone whistling a tune, along with the sound of a spray can.

"Hey, who's out there? Can you hear me? Let me out!" I was quite distressed at this point, and, I'm afraid to say a little claustrophobic, and my worst fear was realized, I phased through the door and toppled on a tall, rugged boy, with long brown hair who was probably about 6'2, he wore a brown vest and black shirt, with gloves that covered his hands, but not his fingers.

'He's kind of cute,' I thought, and then I quickly realized that I just fell through a locker door, and he probably saw me! I looked down at my fingers, unbelieving at the fact that I just phased through a door. I looked up to see the boy and he had a shocked look on his face.

"Hey, you see what you just did?" the boy asked me, he had an excited glint in his brown eyes, like he could understand where I was coming from.

I panicked slightly, unsure of what he was going to do with the new information he gathered. "What? I - I, like, just fell out!"

"Yeah, man. Right through the door! That is so cool!" He was clearly not convinced that I fell out and opened the door.

I decide to make him think it's a hallucination, as I don't want this information spread around the school. "You're crazy!"

"No, no. Wait a minute. I'm the one guy here who gets the beauty of it." I gave him a quizzical look, or at least I thought there would be one on my face if I looked in a mirror.

"Because you're just like me." He told me.

I obviously doubted him. "Really?"

"Really! All right then. Check this." I suddenly felt the entire ground shake, the lockers were rattling around, and I lost my balance.

'I hate being a klutz.'

"Getting the picture?" He asked me, and I was officially freaking out at the moment.

No! You're just, like, some freak! Leave me alone!" I yelled, fleeing toward the girl's locker room, in another part of the school, a little scared about the repercussions of this conversation. I soon overheard him say "You can run, but you can't hide because I'm gonna rock your world."

I quickly changed and was only about five minutes late to the class. I sprint up to the coach to see if he has taken attendance yet. I heard him yell, "Pryde, you're late." I had to quickly come up with an excuse to why I was late. It wasn't like I could tell him I was stuck in a locker, and phased directly through the door…

"Sorry, coach. I was, like having trouble with my locker." I told him, it wasn't exactly a lie.

"All right, you three. To the long jump. Pryde, you're tardy, so you're first." I look over, and saw that Riley and Amy were my partners for this activity.

'Great more fun with the bullies.'

-On the Roof of Deerfield High School-

**-Lance Alvers POV-**

I was looking over the track, thinking about my meeting with the cute girl with brown hair 'I think her name was Kitty, and there she is now' I saw her attempt the long jump, and fail miserably. While I was watching I overheard a conversation between my two, business associates.

"Shut up with the clodding around." My friend Griff said,

"Stow it, Griff! Can we bust in through here or not?" asked Ryan, in a slightly annoyed and hostile tone,

'I bet he is pissed because we can't get to the midterms, or so he thinks.' I thought to myself '

"Not. It's wired into the alarm system." Griff told

"Well, what now, Alvers? We got no way into this stinking office and midterms start in the morning."

"Exam answers ain't exactly gonna fetch a prime price after the test." Ryan told me.

"Can't you just, you know, make a door?" Griff asked me in a curious tone.

"Sure. And have them know we were in? They'll change the tests! I got a sweeter idea." I look on the field and spot Kitty attempting the long jump again. I point to her for my friends to see, "Her."

"What? Are you gonna have her long jump through the wall? Come on, get serious." I gave him an evil eye, and then grabbed his hand, holding in a tight grip, shaking the ground a little bit to scare him.

"You riding me, Griff? Huh? Are you?" I was pissed, and I would make sure that these two idiots knew it.

"Sorry, man. I was just Whoa, whoa." Griff yelled, he had a slightly pained expression on his face.

It's cool, Lance." Ryan tried to reassure me, probably because he was a little worried about his friend.

"You two losers just line up the customers, and I'll snatch the answers." I gave them the evil eye and they left the building. I saw that a tall and attractive red head was approaching Kitty. It looks like she knows about her powers as well!

'I need to get to her before she does!'

I quickly fled the roof. I climbed down the ladder, and looked around, looks like my little escapade up there wasn't noticed. As soon as I touched down, I saw a tall blonde teenager, with some strange glasses look at me, he was tall, very tall, around 6'4" and he was built, he was wearing a light blue hoodie, with jeans and tennis shoes. He had messy blonde hair, and he had a serious look on his face.

He approached me, quite casually actually and straight up asked me, "So… thinking of stealing answers for a midterm?" I was floored, how did he know what I was planning.

I tried to play it off casually. "I have no idea what you are talking about." He gave me a look, and lowered his glasses a little bit, what I saw frightened me a little bit, I saw glowing neon green eyes. What made it worse was the scar over his eye.

'How did he get that?' I was seriously contemplating whether to attack him with my powers at the moment, but I had no idea what this guy was capable of.

He looked at me, and he had a very serious look in his eye. "I know they are housing the midterm answer scantrons in that building, you just jumped down from the top of it, I am not a complete idiot, you were checking the security on the roof." He sighed, "Look, I don't care what you do, just don't drag anyone else into this situation, are we clear?"

I nodded my head, shocked that he deduced all of the facts quickly; I left to intercept the red head from Kitty, as she could be a wrench in the works of my plan.

**-Derek POV-**

I watched as Lance walked off, I feel as though I gave him enough of a warning to not pull more people into his problems. I decided to give the Professor a call and let him know of my situation. I pulled out my newly designed "X-mobile" which is an enhanced version of today's modern phone, hand built by yours truly.

_Ring, Ring_

"_Yes Derek?" _

I started chuckling, as I knew he just used the caller ID in his wheel chair that I installed to know who is calling. No one else knows about it, so we get a good laugh out of it at times. It can even tell you who is calling from a public pay phone.

"Hi Professor, I just wanted to let you know I tried to get a feel for Lance's attitude and his abilities."

"_What do you think?"_

"Personally, I believe he is not ready to become an X-man, he abuses his powers for his own gain, and he is also trying to drag Kitty into stealing the test answers for the midterms. Maybe once he shows more responsibility, and he proves himself, then maybe he will be ready."

"_Okay, I will take your thoughts into consideration, but you must remember that there are not many of us at the moment."_

"I know Professor, I'll keep that in mind, maybe if Jean's plan does not work, maybe we can switch, meaning she can talk to Lance and I can talk to Kitty."

"_That is a good idea Derek, I'll keep that in mind, I will tell you what are next plans are, Xavier out."_

Right, now to figure out what to do with… WAIT! I just had a Eureka moment! What if I did… Then it would… YES! I found my solution to the engine problem I had with the new aircraft! Looks like I have to find a white board to draw my findings, and calculate the new efficiency of the engine! Great! Now where is that whiteboard?...

-Deerfield Track and Field-

-Ten Minutes Earlier-

**-Jean Grey POV-**

I saw Kitty run off into the schools theater, so I decided to follow her, see what I could do to help. "Kitty? Kitty, are you all right?".

Kitty got very defensive, "Who are you? Are you Riley's friend?"

'It must be from the frequent bullying…'

"My name is Jean Grey, and no, I'm not Riley's friend." I tell her, looking her in the eye to make sure she knows I'm serious.

"You look like you'd be her friend." She told this, and she had a sad expression, which made me cringe slightly.

I saw her playing with a mask, and decided to start in with her new powers. "Kitty, There's no need for masks. I know what's going on." She immediately put down the mask, in fear.

She got annoyed with me and yelled, "You don't know anything! And neither does that creepy guy out there!"

I probably looked really confused for a second, and then I realized who she was talking about, "Who, Lance? Forget about him. This is about you. You and your wonderful new gift."

"I don't have any gifts. Just a curse." She looked quite depressed at the moment. I tried to reassure her that this wasn't the case at all.

"Only if you let it be. I'd like to help you understand it. Together. There are others like us, Kitty, they had help finding control of their powers."

"Look, I don't want any of this! It's, like, hard enough just being normal, you know?" She asked me, hoping I would understand, and I do, but she has to embrace that she has a gift now.

"Kitty, look. I want you to watch me for a second. Please?" She nodded, so I looked down on the floor and saw a spilled fruit bowl, so I used my powers to set the bowl back on the table, and then put the fruit in it. Kitty looked at me, a little shocked to speak.

"How'd you do that?" she whispered out.

"The same way you can pass through walls." She had a confused look, so I decided to elaborate. "Just like you, one morning I woke up and I had this power. And trust me, I hated it too."

"I don't believe you! This is a trick! No!" She believed me, she just wouldn't admit it, so I decided to tell her that I knew because of my telepathy.

"No, you do believe me. I know because of my other ability. I can read your thoughts." Her eyes immediately widened, she was speechless for about five seconds, and then she yelled.

"No! Stay out of my head!" I immediately regretted telling her about my telepathy, I watched as she ran out of the room, where she started phasing through the locked door

"No! Kitty, wait!" I was to late.

'That was STUPID! Why would I tell her about my powers of READING HER MIND?! I am never going to hear the end of this from Derek.'

"Piece of advice, red." I turned around and saw a tall boy, with messy brown hair and a brown vest.

'This must be Lance, wonder if Derek has talked with him yet?'

"I'm the only friend that girl's gonna need. And I'll be teaching her what's what. So you just back yourself off." He told me this, and I looked into his eyes and they had a threatening gleam to them.

I quickly decided to call the Professor and contemplate our next move.

_Ring Ring_

"_Yes Jean?"_

"Professor! Stop doing that!" I hear chuckling on the other end of the line,

I quickly explain what happened between Kitty and Lance, and the Professor told me

"_Sounds like Lance could be trouble. If he bonds with Kitty, we may not be able to reach her."_

"I agree. And he is reaching her."

_Derek talked with Lance already, and the conversation didn't go so well, but he had the suggestion of helping you with Kitty, since he believes Lance is a lost cause. You have to stay with it, Jean. I don't want to lose her. Whatever obstacles get in the way, remember they can be overcome. Xavier out."_

The line was dead, and now I had to find Kitty again, 'and where is Derek anyways?'

-In the Hallway-

**-Kitty POV- **

I was just grabbing my books from my locker and putting them in my backpack, I shut my locker and was face to face with the boy who scared me earlier, the one with the powers to shake the earth.

He had a calm look on his face, "Easy, I won't shake things up, I promise. My name is Lance, we should really talk."

I glared at him, wanting to be alone at the moment, "Why can't everyone just, like, leave me alone?"

He looked me in the eye, and with sincerity, explained his perspective, "You feel sick every time you think about it, don't you? You want it to go away. But it won't. You're afraid of what might happen. Your parents are clueless, most likely ashamed, being alone doesn't help either."

I looked at him, some of those things he told me were true, I do get sick thinking about it every time, I want it to go away, and I am afraid with what will happen if I don't get my powers under control. Although, I think my parents care for me and will support me with whatever I go through.

'I'm just not sure what to believe at the moment!'

"What, are you, like, reading my mind too? No way! It's just that I've been going through it myself." I told him, hoping he would get the message to leave me alone.

"You know, trying to figure it out. But I've learned how to control it. Meet me outside the office in an hour. I'll show you how." He told me, and I walked away trying to find a quiet place to think about my predicament at the moment.

I walked into one of the computer labs on campus, for some reason computer programming has always calmed me down, maybe its because it takes my mind off all my troubles. I would say I have the knowledge of a first year computer science student in University, but it was getting harder for me to find books to skip ahead in the subject.

I was busily typing into one of the desktops, working on a program I was creating that I brought on my flash drive. While I was typing, I quickly scanned the room, forgetting to do it before I logged onto the computer. When I was looking around, I saw the blackboard,

'Wait! That isn't a blackboard… It's a whiteboard!'

I took a closer look and discovered that it was indeed a whiteboard, but it was completely covered by a rudimentary drawing of an engine, labeled, with lines upon lines of what looked like scribbled gibberish. I took a closer look, and what shocked me was that those lines were all calculations! I didn't even recognize some of the symbols being used in the calculations, but I could tell some of the equations came from physics electrical engineering, but I was unsure about nearly all of it.

'Those lines are at least an inch tall! And the white board was at least three feet tall and five feet long! Who the hell could do all of this work? And what is it for?'

"I wouldn't touch the board if I were you, it took me a long time to write all that, and unfortunately I haven't taken a picture yet" said a voice toward back of the classroom.

I turned around and saw another person in the room, typing away on his computer rapidly, at an inhuman speed. He was probably clocking around 300 words per minute on average. He paused, and got out of his chair and turned around.

'He is totally hot!'

He was about 6'4", and had a defined swimmers body, making him look strong, yet not overly so. He looked slightly older, I would say nineteen or twenty, but I had a feeling that he is a little younger than that. He was wearing a light grey sweatshirt that had no pockets, only a hood, and it looked very thin, and it looked like he was wearing a dark green button down underneath the sweatshirt, with jeans. He had messy blonde hair that wasn't to long, and he had these gorgeous light green eyes that I could stare into for a long time. It looked like he had a scar, which was over his right eye, 'I wonder how he got that?' Unfortunately, some stylish rectangular glasses that had black frames covered parts of his eyes.

He looked at me and started rubbing his hand behind his head. He must have been embarrassed!

"My apologies, I'm not used to people looking my work… My name is Derek Goddart, and not to be discourteous, but who am I talking to at the moment?"

I had the decency to blush a little bit; at least I don't think he noticed. "Sorry, my name is Kitty Pryde." I saw a look of recognition in his eyes for about half a second, but it quickly disappeared, I was questioning if I even saw it now.

"I have a question Derek, but what exactly is all this work on the board? I noticed it had some thermodynamics and mechanical engineering equations on it, but that is all I know at the moment. And what are you doing on the computer?"

I saw him grin a little bit, and then he started explaining.

"Well, the board is just a drawing of a rudimentary version of a new engine I am trying to build. And good job spotting the thermodynamics, I had to use Carnot's theorem to find the maximum efficiency of the heat engine I will be building." I saw him look back at the computer for a second. "As for the computer, well, I am attempting to design a new computer program, but unfortunately it's not finished at the moment."

'Did he just say computer program?!'

"You're working on a computer program! I'm working on one as well, unfortunately, I tried to get the program running, and I have checked the codes four or five times, and I can't seem to find he mistake. I'm actually thinking of starting all over again."

Derek looked at me for a second, and then said "Tell you what, how about you show me the program and maybe I will be able to help you out, or at least nudge you in the right direction."

So for the next forty minutes, he helped teach me some new computer programming techniques and I actually found the several mistakes in my program! It is now fully operational and I can tell that Derek is quite proud of me for figuring it out on my own. I looked at the clock, and realized it was almost an hour; Lance must be waiting for me!

'Should I stay or should I go?' I then made my decision.

"Derek, it has been awesome hanging out with you, but I have got to go, will I see you again?"

He looked at me and smiled, and slowly lowered his glasses, revealing neon green eyes that glowed slightly.

'He's one of them! What have I done?' I looked at him with a shocked expression, and I was slightly angered, for him not telling me from the beginning. But once I thought about it, why would you reveal to a complete stranger that you're a mutant?

"I'm sure we'll see each other a lot in the future Kitty," He then gave me a pleading look, which by the way looked kind of adorable. "By the way, please don't tell anyone about the extent of my intelligence. There are only three people that know it to its fullest extent, and that is you and someone else. I normally keep to myself when I am building new machines and doing the math behind them." I gapped at him,

'Only me and two other people know he's that smart?!'

I heard him say "Thanks! Also, make sure you pick the right decision. Trust your gut." He then proceeded in removing his flash drive from the computer, and on the way out of the room, he wiped the board clean.

I just realized, 'Wait! He forgot to take a picture! To think, all that work wasted.'

I then left the room to go to the office see what Lance could offer me. I proceeded to walk to the office, it was about 5pm, the very end of the day, and I saw Lance standing next to an air conditioning unit.

"How do you take control?"

Lance looked me in the eye, and then said "By admitting something no one wants to cop to, we are outsiders, there is something wrong with us." I looked down, I'm pretty sure I was crying, thinking about the situation I am now in.

'Is that what people will think of me as? An outcast and outsider?' I thought, as tears just kept streaming from my eyes.

Lance noticed how uncomfortable I was with the conversation, and decided to try and make me feel better. "Hey, don't fret it. Embrace it. The way I see it, fate dealt us winning cards if we play them together."

"Well, nothing is making any sense." I told him, I was very confused about everything that has happened in the past day, my whole life has been practically flipped upside down!

"That's why I'm here, to light your path, and the first step leads us right into that office."

He told me, and he held on to my shoulders and whispered into my ear, "Pass through the wall, and then open the door on the other side, I know you can do it!"

I then put my hands out, and closed my eyes, I felt the cold wall of concrete, but suddenly I felt like it wasn't there anymore! I took a peek out of my eyes, and I saw I was in the office! I did it! I rushed to open the door and let Lance inside.

I was excited, at least something went my way today! "Did you see me? Did you?"

"Yeah! Wow, Kitty. How did it feel?"

"Oh, it was, like, totally unbelievable." I told him, relishing in the feeling that I may be able to control my powers, and do incredible things with them.

"You're making it yours, Kitty. Once you own it, nothing can own you." I saw and he went up to the one computer in the room and put in a flash drive into the system. After several minutes, I heard him say out loud, "Test answers present and accounted for!" He said, as he took out the flash drive and slipped it into his pocket.

My temper started to flare rapidly, 'He used me for getting test answers for the midterms?!' I wasn't just mad anymore, I was absolutely livid.

"That's what this is about? Cheating? Are you kidding me?" I said, I saw Lance look at me and then offer an explanation about this whole ordeal.

"Hey, this crummy school uses these kind of tests to keep us down, Kitty. No more! We take control. Now let's modify some grades. Let's see… Pryde, P-R-Y." I grab his hands, hoping he'll stop,

I looked back at the conversation I had with Derek. "No!" I yelled, wanting for him to stop his typing immediately. I remembered what Derek told me before he left the room. ' "Make sure you pick the right decision. Trust your gut." '

"Look, there's no victim here. We're just evening the score." Lance told me, as he forced his hands out of my grip and the tables turned, his hands grabbed my wrists now.

I was a little scared, and I wanted to just back out at the moment and find my family. "This doesn't feel right. I've changed my mind! I want to go!"

And then all hell broke loose.

**-Jean Grey POV-**

Derek and I suited up, and Derek switched out his glasses with sunglasses, we know where Kitty is and we talked with her parents, who listened to our case, and we told them about Lance, and what he could possibly do to her.

We immediately left their house when we got a call from Derek about Kitty and Lance meeting up by the office with the test answers. 

We rushed over immediately and Derek and I suited up in the X-van. We caught up with Kitty's parents, as they were about to go into the room. They looked over at us, and we nodded, showing our support. They then ran into the room, and we heard Kitty yell

"This doesn't feel right. I've changed my mind! I want to go!"

"Whoa! Whoa! What are you doing? Come on, Kitty." We heard Lance tell her,

I looked over at Mr. Pryde, who looked very angry. "Let go of my daughter!"

"Far enough, old man!" we heard Lance yell, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and the bookshelf started to fall on him. The ground started to shake.

'This is unreal! The destructive capability of this power is unbelievable.

We heard Kitty yell, "No, stop!" but before the bookshelf fell, I stopped it, and then righted it immediately, before it could fall on Mr. Pryde, as the tremors knocked him down to the floor.

Derek gave me a slight nod, knowing that I caught it from crushing him. I overheard Lance yell, "They're just gonna confuse you, Kitty. We're out of here!" She looked from Lance, to our little group.

I looked her in the eye, "Kitty, please. We can work through this together."

"Let go of me!" she yelled at Lance, but I saw that his grip tightened in response.

"We're in control now. We make our own way." He told her in a threatening voice.

"Kitty, I've pushed you to this, I know. I wanted to pretend nothing was wrong.

I'm not perfect. I'm learning. Just like you are." I heard her Dad say,

"Daddy?" She looked at her father, with tears down her face, and she had a look of relief after he said it.

"Forget them! Come on! I'm bringing this place down!" Lance yelled out, his hands were out, ready to bring down the building. I saw from the corner of my eye that Derek tensed up slightly, ready to spring into action if necessary.

I decided to say one more thing, before Lance attempted to destroy the building, "You called your gift a curse. If you go with him, I guarantee you it will be." That sounded ominous enough I think.

"Please, Kitty. Listen to her! Sweetheart, we love you." Mrs. Pryde was holding her husband up, and Kitty stood there trying to break the grip of Lance.

"They're too late! You're with me now!" He yelled out, looking at her, an almost hungry look in his eyes.

"No! I'm not!" she shouted, using her powers to phase through his grip on her hands, Avalanche screamed, and that is when all hell broke loose.

He used his powers to topple the building, while we were still inside.

Hundreds of pounds of rocks fell on top of Kitty, but there was nothing we could do at the moment, we were fighting to survive. Derek and I created a system to lessen the strain, he would generate an antigravity field, holding the concrete falling on us in a stasis and slowing its descent and lowering its weight, and I would fling the rocks away.

I heard the professor mentally talk to me, for some reason his telepathy didn't work on Derek. _"Jean, your powers! Use your powers!"_

"_We're trying. It's too much!"_ I responded, barely holding on, there was a lot of rock coming down.

"_I'll assist you two. Jean, keep your mind clear."_ I looked over at Derek, who was showing a lot of strain, as he was catching rocks faster than I could throw them away.

"_But Kitty!..."_ I told him, I didn't know what happened to her, I hope she is okay.

"_Keep your mind clear."_ I heard him say in a stern voice in my head.

"No! Kitty. My little girl." I listened to her parents; they were on the verge of tears. But then they saw something come out of the rubble.

"Kitty!" and she ran through and hugged her parents.

"Oh, Kitty." And they hugged her back; she looked around, and noticed the danger we were in.

She told us, "Okay. Like, everybody grab onto me. I'll get us out." We all grabbed on to her, but as soon as Derek grabbed a hold, Kitty became really strained for some reason; and strangled out a yell. He instantly let go when he discovered he was causing her pain.

He looked at us and yelled

"Just get them out! I'll be fine!" he yelled out.

I looked up, and saw a huge piece of concrete, he looked really strained holding it up, but I trust him, and he knew the risks before signing up to be an x-man.

I looked at Kitty and her family and motioned for them to go, quickly.

We phased through the wall, and turned around, and saw the roof finally cave in and fall into the middle of the building.

"Derek!" Kitty yelled out, she fell down to the ground, and started crying. Her parents came up to her and they had a family hug. They were sad to see the older teen give up his life to save them.

They heard a slight rumbling, and the rock move up and out of the rubble, and watched it being thrown aside. Soon, they saw a very familiar figure come out, and saw a huge gash on his chest, as his uniform was torn up. He glided down to the ground, and soon laid down on the ground, panting heavily.

"DEREK!" we heard Kitty yell, she quickly ran up to him, followed by everyone else. Kitty quickly got on her knees and quickly put his head on her lap.

He groaned and looked at all of us surrounding him. "What?" he got up slowly, Kitty helping him up slowly, "It's but a flesh wound."

I telekinetically slapped him across the face, and Kitty yelled "WE THOUGHT YOU DIED!"

He gave me a friendly glare for the slap, I know he didn't feel it as much as it looked like, but it felt good to do it after what he put us through. He looked at Kitty. "It takes a little more than a rock to eradicate me." He had a slight pause, "Well done phasing your friends and family out of the building to safety, I think it's safe to say everyone here is proud of you for finding a semblance of control involving your powers. Now time for me to bandage myself up."

He turned and walked away toward the X-van, probably to wrap himself in gauzes before he bleeds to death. Knowing him, even though he is injured he'll still insist on piloting Blackbird home.

The Professor turned his wheelchair toward Kitty, and told her "Yes, well done Kitty. It is a gift. And you've used it well." She gave him a slight nod and turned toward her parents.

"Mom, I'm so sorry. And, Daddy, these people, they, like, want to help me. I trust them." She told them.

Her father looked her in the eye, "I know, sweetie. And so do I." He turned around. "Professor, I think we have some things to talk about."

"Yes, we do." He responded.

The next twelve hours were a blur, once Derek was patched up, we all went to the Pryde's home, and once we got all the arrangements sorted, it was nearly midnight, so they offered for us to stay the night, unfortunately, they didn't have enough room in their house, the Professor and Derek shared a look, and he said he would go back to the Blackbird, so he could prep it early on. Derek and I needed to be back in time for our midterms tomorrow, along with the ones that we missed today. When they said this I saw Kitty with a slight pout on her face. I guess she wanted Derek to stay in the house so she could talk with him a little more.

The thing that puzzled me however was that I didn't know how he would seep on the Blackbird. There was nothing, not even a fold up mattress, or a pillow for that matter.

'But the Professor must know something that I don't, because it looked like they mutually agreed on it. I wonder…'

However, when I woke up the next morning, he came to pick us up at 5:30, informing us that the Blackbird was prepped. Kitty said goodbye to her parents, and after that was done, we loaded the blackbird, and were off! I watched Kitty nod off to sleep and I actually fell asleep on the way back because it was so early! We woke up to the feeling of falling rapidly. We both glared at Derek who was innocently whistling while on the descent into the mansion.

Luckily we were in time for breakfast, and we introduced Kitty to Scott and Kurt, although I don't think she knew he was a fuzzy blue goofball yet due to his image inducer. Derek quickly changed and redid his bandages. He arrived and was eating copious amounts of food in front of him.

"What? I have a high metabolism, kind of like Kurt." He replied, giving a cheeky smile to Kurt, who pretended to be offended.

During breakfast, Scott and Kurt were telling us what happened to them yesterday; apparently they had a run in with Sabretooth, and fought him with Wolverine. Scott looked kind of down though, apparently his car was practically destroyed in the fight, and it was in the shop at the moment. It would be there for about two weeks. Unfortunately he had no other car to take him to school.

Derek looked at Scott, Kurt, and myself, he knew the professor was going to enroll Kitty in to the school later on today, so I knew she didn't need a ride. He also knew that Duncan was going to pick me up in

I heard Derek chuckle. "You guys are lucky I have been working on something at the moment. As I see it you guys have two options." We all looked at him, dumbfounded.

'What does he have up his sleeve?'

"Jean, Scott, remember several months ago when Logan and I went on a mission?"

Scott and I looked at one another, wondering where this was going. That mission took roughly a week; we kept wondering what was going on until he came back. We both looked at Derek to get him to continue.

"Well, it really wasn't a mission." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "In fact, Logan and I went to a car show and bought some 'fixer uppers' for ourselves and the institute…"

Everyone looked at him like he was nuts, and we heard Wolverine chuckling in the background while reading the morning paper. He must've been laughing at the looks on our faces.

We all turned back to Derek, wondering why he was telling us this.

"Well, I finished one of the cars last week. It's fully restored, and ready to go. So I am going to let Scott borrow it until his convertible is repaired."

Scott looked like he was about to burst with happiness at this point, same with Kurt.

I look at the clock on the wall, "It's time to go everyone," but I followed Kurt, Scott, and Derek to the garage, I wanted to see what was so great about this car.

We all arrived in the garage, and noticed a new car that wasn't there before, covered up by a cloth.

"Are you guys ready?" Derek asked us, eager to unveil his new "toy".

Kurt and Scott nodded their heads eagerly, and then he tore off cloth, revealing a beautiful yellow car. I quickly took a glance at Scott and Kurt, who were both gapping at the machine.

"Gentlemen, and Ladies," I didn't even notice Kitty followed us into the garage. "May I present, my new Lamborghini Miura" he then looked at Scott, "Scott," he quickly looked toward Derek "I am trusting you with this car, so don't cock up!"

Scott and Kurt got in rather quickly, excited that they were in an actual Lamborghini.

I then saw Duncan pull up, and I walked toward the car and got in, before he could pull out though, Derek shot out of the garage on his classic Harley, and I saw Scott fly out of the garage following him, like a bat out of hell, and he flew past the gate of the institute. A dust trail was the only remnant that the car was there in the first place.

Duncan looked from the dust trail, back to me, and then he asked, "Jean! Was that a Lamborghini?!"

I sighed, looks like it's going to be a long day…

**So here is the second chapter, hope Derek Goddart entertained you enough with his little escapades. Again, please review so I can make the story better, critique can be helpful often times, and I hope you enjoyed it!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own X-men Evolution, which is technically Marvel, which is now technically Disney. It is a cool cartoon though. Hope everyone enjoys reading the chapter! Also, I left a poll on my profile for the paring with Derek. Just submit the poll and I'll see what you guys want me to do. The pairing is probably going to take a while though. Anyways, here is the next chapter:**

Bayville High School

**-Derek POV-**

After lots of stares from the general populace because of my car and motorcycle, I pulled in front of Scott and Kurt on the way to school on my antique Harley. When we arrived at school, we parked in our normal spots, which were coincidentally next to one another, a lot of guys gathered around the Lamborghini; the general consensus was that the car was brilliant.

"Woah!"

"Damn, I wish I had a car that awesome."

Even some of the girls were hovering around, admiring it.

"Scott, is this your car?" asked Taryn, one of Jeans close friends on the soccer team, she was dating our friend Paul, but I have a feeling she was more interested in Scott.

Scott chuckled uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head; everyone was listening in at the moment while I was leaning on my bike, "preparing" for my midterms.

"Well, it isn't mine, I was in an accident yesterday, and mine is currently being repaired, so Derek let me borrow it until mine is done."

I felt every eye on me at that moment, some with disbelief, others with envy. Then I followed Scotts lead, and laughed uncomfortably,

"Well, I fix up old cars and motorcycles in my spare time, since I can't play sports, might as well find another hobby." They knew that I couldn't play sports because of my condition, which would be because of my eyes and durability. I could really hurt someone if they collided with me. I told everyone, a lot of them looked at me like I was crazy.

"Doesn't take a lot of money though?" I heard Portia, a friend of Taryns ask me,

'How do I answer this?' I thought to myself, coming up with an explanation. They can't know about all the patents I have at the moment, as that is my main income and it also helps the institute. I came up with an explanation a second later.

"Well, as you know I am an orphan," Everyone looked uncomfortable for some reason, Scott and I got used to those types of reactions over the years. "Anyways, my father did this as a hobby, and I thought that this was a way to connect with him in some way." Well, it wasn't a complete lie, my father was a mechanical engineer and did enjoy working on car engines, but the engine and the Lamborghini itself was practically childs play when I was fixing it, compared to what I was working on now anyways.

Everyone looked at me with a sense of sympathy, and the bell was heard, signaling to everyone that the day was starting in five minutes. Reluctantly, we all left the car to go to class.

On the way to my AP Physics midterm, 'Great, five midterms in one day, its going to be so boring.' See, I could finish these tests in roughly five minutes, but if I finished it to quickly, with all the questions correct, people might get suspicious. 'Oh the woes of being a genius. What am I going to do when I finish?' I sighed, looks like it is going to be a long day.

I sat down in the room where all of the makeup midterms were taking place; unfortunately this process would take all day. I looked around and saw about four or five people I didn't know any of them personally, so I sat down next to Jean, giving her a smug smile.

"Hey Jean, what's up?" I asked,

"Nothing really, " she said, she was doing some last minute studying, looking over the equations for physics and chemistry.

I looked over to her, and whispered, "Whom do you think is going to get the better grade?"

She gave me a glare, and said, "I will beat you! I will make sure of that."

"If you say so," I replied, I had tried to stifle a laugh, but failed. Luckily, she couldn't telekinetically slap me in any way.

See, Jean and I have had friendly competitions about grades since she came to the institute. She was the smartest person in her school before she moved to this one. She soon discovered that she had someone just as smart, or smarter than her to "compete" with. Right now, I am the valedictorian, and she is the salutatorian, and she is trying to fix that, with no avail.

So we sat, and took the tests, I finished roughly an hour ahead of Jean; luckily, I was just in time for lunch.

I saw Kurt sitting alone under a tree, so I decided to join him today.

"Hey Kurt, what's up?"

"Oh, hey Derek, nothing much, just sitting here enjoying my lunch."

I looked down at his lunch and mine, and started laughing.

"What is so funny?" he asked

"Well, people must be looking at us wondering how the hell we are going to eat all of this food."

We looked around, and noticed people were giving us weird looks, but then we looked back at each other and burst out laughing.

"Mein Gott! That is hilarious!" replied Kurt.

As we were laughing, we looked over toward the car park, and saw a familiar Rolls Royce pull up into the handicapped spot. We looked over and saw the professor came out of the back, and Kitty joined him, she saw us and waved, so we waved back at her. She followed the Professor toward the main office. I knew they were going to be going to Principal Darkholme, and I informed Xavier of her disguise as Mystique, as I noticed something was off about her when she first arrived.

"The Professor must be enrolling her at the moment." I told Kurt, we both shrugged and continued to eat. I think everyone around us were unbelieving that we could eat so much and still look like we are in shape. We dropped some of my books in a pouch in the motorcycle, and Scott came up and put some of his books in the car.

I looked around, and saw a Jeep pull in and park several spaces down from Scotts space, and saw a familiar length of long shaggy brown hair over the top of several cars. The three of us were watching, and when Lance saw us, and the car, his eyes popped out a little, and the he had an evil smirk. I had a bad feeling about this. I stopped him before I could get to my car, and motorcycle.

I looked him in the eye and gave him the coldest glare I could possibly muster; he visibly shuddered a little bit, which made me laugh internally. "If I see any damage on my vehicles because of you, you'll wish that building came down on you instead of me."

His eyes widened a little bit, and then he walked away toward the principals office. 'Must be a new recruit for Mystique.'

The day continued as normal, and everyone was relieved that midterms were over today. Jean had to go to soccer tryouts, while Scott, Kurt, and I returned to institute. I finished my homework extremely quickly, as in five minutes quickly, but that is because midterms ended and the teachers gave us a sort of break.

In the meantime, I went to the garage; I was working on my Ferrari GTO 250 from 1962. I don't know why I enjoy repairing and fixing up cars, but to be honest it is kind of therapeutic. It would take about another two months to gather all of the parts in order to fully restore it.

I looked over and saw Logan smirk at me, he was working on a black 1947 Indian Chief, a motorcycle that could rival my Harley, I smirked back and asked him, "Logan, how about a race sometime soon?"

He burst out laughing and said, "Bub, I don't think your Harley would stand a chance against my Indian."

"We'll see Logan, we'll see." I said, chuckling to myself. I winced a little bit, since I still had a broken rib from my last fight.

We both went back to work, and since he was the head of training at the institute with Storm, we both left at the same time to go change and enter the danger room.

When I got down there, however, there was a slightly tense atmosphere between Kurt and Kitty. I saw her talking with Jean, and I saw that she kept sneaking slight glances toward Kurt, who I noticed didn't have his image inducer on at the moment.

I think she was perturbed with Nightcrawlers appearance. This was the first time she saw what he truly looked like without the image inducer. I walked up to both girls and asked them how everything was, and they told me it was fine. I also informed them that Lance Alvers would be attending Bayville High School this year, and I saw Kitty cringe, but a faint blush appeared on her face as well.

"Hey Kitty, can I talk with you for a second, before the training session?" She looked over at me and nodded.

We went over to the corner. I turned to her, and asked her straight up, "Are you disconcerted with Nightcrawlers appearance? Because you looked very concerned when he was still in the room."

She looked at me, and said, "I am… I'm just, like, not used to it yet. I'm sure it'll be fine over time, its just, he kind of scares me."

I looked her in the eye, "Kitty, you have to understand that Kurt has been chased and discriminated nearly all of his life because of his appearance. You need to get over this quickly, not for the sake of the team, but for the sake of Kurt. Now come on, lets go to training."

In the session, we were all called our codenames, and even though Jean gets annoyed with me, I still call her Marvel Girl. It was hilarious when she called herself that years ago, and it still is now, although it does drive her nuts.

In this session, we were trying to get through an obstacle course in a certain time limit.

We heard Wolverine over the loud speaker "Listen up X-men, you guys are doing an obstacle course today, the fastest one to finish it won't have to run five miles after training." Everyone groaned, except for me.

I smirked evilly, knowing that this would be like taking candy from a baby, until I heard Logan over the loud speaker, "And did I mention you guys can't use your powers?" Nightcrawler, Marvel Girl, and Kitty, now dubbed as Shadowcat, groaned. Scott and I didn't really care; his powers wouldn't have helped him anyway. In fact, he smirked a little knowing he had a little bit of an advantage now that no powers can be used.

The rest of us stood to the side as the obstacles were came out of the floor. Storm and the Professor were also in the control tower, they are probably observing Kurt and Kitty to see what they are capable of, after all, Kurt has only been here for a couple of days while Kitty arrived here today, I'm sure they were very curious.

"Cyclops, you're up first, make sure to set a good example for the new students." who finished the course in a respectable eight minutes and twelve seconds. Unfortunately it would have been faster if the lasers hadn't pinned him down.

Jean and I saw Kitty's expression, she looked freaked about the obstacle course, which made us burst out laughing.

I then told her, "Welcome to the Danger room, I hope you have a pleasant experience with us today."

Jean gave her a glance, and told her that she will be fine, I told her to "Keep Calm and Carry On." She looked at me like I was crazy, but then I told her "Trust me, it'll help you in the future."

She looked doubtful, but then over the loudspeakers we heard from Wolverine, "Half-Pint, you're up next! Get your butt to the starting line."

She relented, and went to the starting line. Overall, her run was pretty good for a newbie, and there was less obstacles on hers compared to Scotts.

'Probably going easy on her since today was her first day.'

She finished the course in ten minutes and forty-five seconds. So she was definitely going to have to run the five miles at the moment.

Next up was Jean, and since she was one of the most athletic ones here, she finished the course in seven minutes fifty-five seconds, skimming pass Scott on the leader board.

Nightcrawler went next, and his time was the biggest surprise to us all, seven minutes and thirty seconds, putting him in first place. He used his superior agility and tail to have a distinct advantage. Also, since he didn't 'BAMF' everywhere it was completely legal and counted.

I was the final contestant up, knowing that this was a piece of cake for me. However, before the starting gun shot, I heard the loudspeaker from above.

"Wait a minute Bub, I know that smirk of yours, and guess what, you now have to add three minutes to whatever time you get in order to stay in the game." I glared at Wolverine; there was now only a slight chance that I could complete the course in less than four minutes and thirty seconds. "And that is not all, Graviton (that is my X-men name, it took a while for everyone to come up with it), I looked back up at Wolverine. "You have to put fifteen times Earths gravity on you while you are doing the course." I start mumbling swear words, knowing I was not going to win now. It also didn't help that I had a broken rib from yesterdays fight.

I set myself up at the start line, and activated my powers. This wasn't going to be easy now, this just got extremely difficult. I looked over and saw Kitty and Kurt shocked, there were probably wondering how I could even stand with that much gravity acting on me at the moment.

Sure, I'm faster, stronger, and more durable than the best Olympian athlete, only because of my gravity conditioning though. I normally use ten times gravity in my own workouts, I didn't want to exert my body too much, or else it could fall apart. But this is going to be a true challenge, and Logan knew that he was pushing me to the limit.

I started the obstacle course, with the intent to trying to beat everyone else. However, I quickly realized that it wouldn't be possible until I conditioned my body even more over the next six or seven months. But it takes a while to get used to new gravitational conditions. Hell, it took me five years to get used to ten times gravity like it was normal gravity.

I tried my best to beat the course, but a lot of the lasers pinned me down, so I finished with a time of nine minutes and twenty-five seconds. But considering three minute was added onto that time, it wasn't too bad.

'Well, at least I was not that pathetic' I thought to myself.

Wolverine came down form the observation point in his sweatpants, "Right, Elf, you get the night off, no funny business okay? The rest of you, fall in line!" We all groaned, "And if anyone starts to complain, I'll let Derek increase the gravity acting on you while on our run." That shut up everyone quickly. "And Derek, you have to weigh ten times the amount you normally do for this drill, so ten times gravity for you."

'Crap! I'm going to have to sleep in an extra hour tonight, oh well, luckily its still only three hours of sleep.'

We all finished the five-mile run, and we were all drenched in sweat, especially me, but I could tell Wolverine was proud of us for finishing the run with a decent time to boot.

"Right, all of you hit the showers, our training session is done for tonight." I looked at my watch, it was only a little past eight, which means I can get something to eat and then I can do something fun!'

Kurt, Scott and I had some male bonding time by playing Forza 5 on my Xbox, it was a pretty close race between Scott and I, as usual, so we both won some races, and lost some, still it was a lot of fun. I think Jean and Kitty were bonding in her room, probably talking about her new school and other stuff.

'Huzzah! Finally something entertaining to do!' I went to the library and read for the next three hours. I went back to my room and fell asleep nearly instantly.

I woke up at around two in the morning, took my shower, and then went down to the lab. In the technology lab, I was currently working on a computer-engineering research, which involved building a computer, and this computer would put all others to shame. I was trying to make the world's first quantum computer, in theory, it is supposed to be at least ten times faster than the classical computer, however, it is very difficult to create as no one has successfully built an extremely quick quantum computer, and also classical computers have been refined over several decades, which means I have a lot of catching up to do at the moment.

I worked on this project for six hours uninterrupted, and then looked at my watch,

'It's already eight o'clock! Everyone must be wondering where I am now!' I thought. They still didn't know that I only needed two hours of asleep on average.

I quickly took off my lab coat and jogged upstairs to get some breakfast, I noticed everyone was at the table but Kurt,

'He must have gone to that burger place for breakfast… Again!' I thought to myself, as I sat down and piled my plate full of food.

The next week was pretty normal, well, for a X-man. Kitty and Kurt made a bunch of new friends, Scott, Jean and I hung out with our friends, and it was a pretty good week, although some of the training sessions were brutal. Especially the one where we had to run ten miles, and I had to do it with eight times gravity…

It was a Friday night training session, and we were all watching Wolverine get past the mansion defenses. I was taking notes in my head, since I also helped build parts of the security system and manage it, although Wolverine and Storm are the brains behind it. Everyone else was here as well, although the rest of the X-men looked kind of bored, except for Kurt, who was hanging upside down with his tail, eating popcorn. We all heard Storm come on over the intercom.

"Impressive. You got past the automated defenses by using the air vents but you won't get past me! Testing me? All right, then."

'Not to self, add knock out gas into the air vents, they were to easily breached.' I thought to myself, also, 'Add more lasers on the roof, catch somehow catch intruder by surprise.'

"It's time you remembered why they call me Storm! You look a little flushed, and the forecast isn't good." We all watched as Logan was frozen from head to toe, but he broke out, and had a pretty witty catch phrase.

"Now, that was cold." Kurt and I chuckled, I would normally laugh about that with Scott but he was in what I dubbed 'Mission Mode' its where he doesn't have any witty quips and is very serious about everything. I've been trying to help him loosen up over the last four years.

"Then let's warm you up." Quipped Storm, as she pushed a button, and out came a modified laser turret. Logan easily destroyed it, and then Storm pushed another button and a giant flail came swinging around the middle of the room. Wolverine easily destroyed that as well.

"Got any other party tricks?" He asked, enjoying this training session.

"Stop! It is, at the moment, as much as we can afford, Wolverine." We heard as the Professor wheeled into the observatory of the danger room.

"Hey, when I give a demo, I give a demo." Wolverine yelled up to us.

"Is that demo as in "demolish" or "demonstration"? What was the point?" Scott asked, still a little unsure about why we were not doing any exercises today.

"The point, young Cyclops, was to teach you something about finding the weak points in sophisticated security systems." I heard the Professor tell him.

"And I'd say ours needs a little work." Wolverine told us, walking in with his torn clothes.

"That was tight. I give it two thumbs up." Nightcrawler said, while he was upside down using his feet to hold the bowl of popcorn.

"The vents were pretty easily breached. We'll need to fix that. Maybe electrify them or install poison gas sprayers." I chuckled, and everyone looked at me, all I then pointed to my head. Wolverine smirked; he knew I had some ideas, but Storm and Wolverine were in charge of our safety, so they had the ultimate say in the end.

"Wolverine." The Professor looked at Wolverine pointedly, not liking violence that much, he would always attempt to find the peaceful solution.

"All right. All right. Knockout gas, then."

"Is it just me, or is anyone else, like, still seriously freaked by all this? Oh, right. It's just me? Great" Kitty said, I don't think she was used to her surroundings yet. I may have to show her the lab when all this is over with, maybe give her something she'll enjoy doing. But it was really funny when everyone looked at her

'Maybe I can give her the enhanced classical computer I built a couple of years ago. It is two years out of date for me, but it still has more computing power than a lot of other computers. She can work on her programming that way.'

"Relax, Kitty. You'll be fine. We're right beside you." Jean told the slightly younger girl, they have become pretty close over the last week.

"Popcorn?" Kurt was still trying to make Kitty more comfortable with him; she has tried over the last week, but unfortunately, there has been no breakthrough yet. He ported right next to her, twice. She looked freaked out.

"Sorry." I heard Kurt tell her, "Next time, I'll honk before I port."

"Whatever. Look, guys, it's late. If it's no biggie to you I'm gonna, like, drop out." As Kitty said this she phased through the floor. Probably to go to bed, for some reason she and Kurt needed the most sleep, probably because they were still growing at the moment.

"She's fully not into the fuzzy dude, not that I really blame her." Kurt looked down at the floor, a little dismayed. He had this treatment nearly all of his life; I couldn't blame him for being down.

"She just needs time, Kurt. She'll come around." Jean told him, and Kurt had a small smile on his face.

"Tell you what Kurt, next time we fly the blackbird, Scott or I will teach you how to fly it. Chicks dig pilots, apparently." And then I mumbled, "If Top Gun is anything to go by."

Jean slapped me in the back of the head and we all laughed about it and walked out of the danger room.

We all heard a telepathic call in our heads, _"X- Men, we have an emergency. Scott, Derek get the Blackbird prepped for launch. And since it's a weekend, assemble the full team."_

"_Yes, sir."_, and _"I'm on it" _was heard in everyone's heads. I went to go gather some things I could work on during the flight, and then preceded to the blackbird. Everyone was in his or her costume, and I saw Scott waiting for me,

"Scott, how about we let Nightcrawler take the reigns today, and then Shadowcat on the way back. We'll switch off pilots on the way back."

Scott looked at me, and nodded, "Sounds good," He smirked, "I'll rock paper scissors you for the first flight."

Three tedious rounds of rock, paper, scissors, Scott won, so I sat in the back, behind Storm and across from Kitty and Jean.

"What's the mission Professor?"

"Cerebro has detected a new mutant in Caldecott County, Mississippi. My mental impressions from the scene indicate a highly disturbed individual. Our mutant is a danger to herself and possibly others as well. X- Men, we have a rogue."

Scott and Nightcrawler were up front, preparing for takeoff. It was pretty easy considering it was a vertical take off. We were then flying off toward Jackson at three times the speed of sound. I was peacefully working on my laptop, trying to figure out some kinks in the design of the new aircraft I was building.

Several minutes later, I heard Nightcrawler tell Scott "Stealth mode stable. Leveling off at 10,000 feet."

"Steady. Now hold it right there. And you've got it! Nice job, Kurt. You'll make a pilot yet." Scott told Nightcrawler, with a small smile, but that smile soon disappeared.

"Thanks!" Nightcrawler said, now relaxing behind the wheel of a fifty million dollar aircraft, driving with his feet. Luckily Scott is piloting at the same time.

"Or maybe not… I've logged our flight plan to Jackson with the FAA. Then we'll take the van." Scott told the Professor,

"Good. You're picking up logistics quickly, Scott." The Professor told Scott, he looked slightly proud of him as well.

I was typing away on my laptop when I overheard a conversation between Jean and Kitty, I heard her say, "Scott seems so, like, together. So cool, and he's kind of cute." She looked at him with a slightly dreamy look in her eyes. It was silently laughing, I don't think they realized I am eavesdropping.

"Cute? Stiff, maybe. Exacting, definitely. But, you know, from a certain angle." I heard Jean contemplate, then I was full out laughing, they looked over, and their eyes widened considerably.

'Well, I think they know I overheard the conversation.'

The both glared at me, and I looked back at them, with a clueless expression, "I didn't hear that conversation," they seemed satisfied with that answer and turned away, now with hushed voices. I turned back to my laptop, typing up the final blueprints for the new aircraft.

About an hour later, while on our slow descent, roughly at about five thousand feet, I looked up I saw Kurt outside the Blackbird, on the nose of it. I was actually quite impressed with how long he was standing there, considering we were descending at about 200 miles per hour.

'Oh this can't be good," He then proceeded to fall down and 'BAMF' right into the cabin, luckily I stopped him right before he slammed into Kitty. They both gave me a grateful look, and then I put Kurt down and went back to work. Kurt looked kind of down and went back to the co-pilot seat.

"Kurt, the Blackbird is not the place to be fooling around. You'll frighten Kitty." I heard from the Professor, in a serious voice.

I decided to scare him a little bit, I don't think anyone else on the flight realized just how lucky we were that he didn't do that at mach one or two.

"Kurt, just to warn you, don't ever do that again, you were lucky that you didn't teleport out there at mach one or two, because the heat from the skin of the aircraft could have burned you at those speeds."

He looked at me, his eyes wide, and he nodded slightly,

'I think he got the message.'

"Sorry, Kitty." He told her, looking quite glum at the moment.

"Just, like, stay away from me!" Kitty yelled at him, scared that she was almost hurt because of his antics. He turned back and sat down in the copilot's chair, with a glum look on his face.

The approach was pretty standard, and then we parked the blackbird and all hopped into the van, I was the driver, while Wolverine and the Professor came up with the plan.

We dropped off Jean at the hospital where the boy who was incapacitated by the rogue. She was establishing a mental link with the Professor; meanwhile, everyone else was dropped off in several locations that were within a kilometer of one another. I got off with Wolverine and we started our search with Nightcrawler and Shadowcat.

Kitty turned to us, and asked "So does this, like, bite, or what?"

"The Prof says the girl's mind is confused and difficult to pinpoint so keep looking." Wolverine told us, which made complete sense, if she was absorbing other peoples thoughts, they must all be jumbled up, difficult to tell which ones are hers and which ones are from the person she absorbed.

I saw Nightcrawler and Shadowcat drop back a little bit, but Kitty was still putting some distance between Nightcrawler.

"Wolverine," He turned to me, although he was still sniffing the air. I lowered my voice, "We can't let her touch you or I, if she absorbs our memories, she'll get even more freaked out." He nodded, acknowledging that we should avoid being touched at I knew that if she touched Wolverine, or me, she'll see all the painful experimentation on us, and that is the last thing we want her to think. I noticed he started jogging in one direction, and we all followed

"Got a scent?" I asked him, knowing the answer.

"Yeah. I smell fear." He told us, we turned the corner and saw a brunette with white highlights, who looked kind of Goth, on her knees next to a blind woman. She saw Wolverine and I, then proceeded to freak out, and then she bolted.

"That's gotta be her!" Wolverine yelled, and we all tore after her, I could've used my powers to slow her down, but that wouldn't have been a good first impression.

"Please leave me be!" she said, as she hopped a fence, trying to flee us.

"Wolverine, wait!" Yelled Shadowcat, she looked like she was about to fall behind.

Nightcrawler looked at us and said, "She seems to be terrified by you two. Let me try."

"Okay, kid. Just don't mess up. Capisce?"

"Yes, sir!" Nightcrawler gave us an informal salute.

"We'll go find the prof. And, squirt, put on your best face. No sense freaking the poor kid out any more than she already is." Kurt turned on his image inducer and started running down the alley, trying to catch up with Rogue. "And keep an eye on the half-pint here."

"Hey!" I heard as Wolverine and I hopped the fence.

We hopped the fence, and started jogging off in the same direction, he had the scent of the professor down by now, so I followed him. I kept up quite easily considering my conditioning with gravity.

"Wolverine, the one thing that worries me is that I only know of one person who can look exactly like us." He had a thoughtful look while we were running down the early, and then he growled, realizing who was driving Rogue away form us.

"Mystique" he yelled, now we knew what the problem was.

"Wolverine, I'll try and back track to find her and stop her, we don't want her planting more ideas into the rogues head." I told him.

He nodded, and I decided to fly off in search of Mystique. Now that I knew what she was up to, maybe I could stop her.

**-Charles Xavier POV-**

Wolverine arrived, and informed us of the situation, Kurt is trying to keep her in a yard for a little while, and Derek had a hunch about Mystique and flew off to find her.

I suddenly felt a ringing in my head and heard a voice call out to me in my mind.

"_Professor! Professor!"_ The voice sounded like one of my students, Kitty.

"_Kitty? Kitty, not so loud. Slowly, please. Order your thoughts." _I told her, unfortunately as a telepath, I can't read minds quickly or orderly, that's part of the reason why I couldn't read Derek's mind.

She did as I told her, and slowed down her thoughts and calmed down a little. _"It's Kurt. She hurt him. She did something to him."_

"_Stay where you are, Kitty. Help is on its way."_

I turned to Wolverine and Scott, "Wolverine, it's Nightcrawler. The rogue has his mind and his abilities."

I heard Wolverine let out a feral growl, "This is my fault. I shouldn't have left the little squirrel in charge." He then proceeded to climb over the fences to get back to Nightcrawler and Shadowcat.

I decided to scan out for Kurts brainwaves. If the rogue has his powers, she'll also have his memories. "I'm getting a clear reading now on Kurt's brain-wave patterns. She's more focused each time she uses her power. You three go ahead. I'll guide you." Jean and Storm flew away in opposite directions, while Scott ran and follwed Jean, however, she was much faster than him when she was flying.

-A Graveyard-

**-Jean Grey POV-**

I was flying, unfortunately I wasn't as fast as Storm or Derek, but I could be pretty fast when I wanted to be. I was flying over a graveyard, and spotted the rogue mutant, she had her knees up to her face, and she looked like she was thinking really hard about the situation she was in. I touched down and she saw me, she stood up, and I decided to be the one that would initiate the conversation.

"Hi."

"Do? Do I know you? Oh, these memories. I'm so confused." She kept holding her head, and I really felt for her, I know what its like to be plunged into someone else's memories, and it is not an entirely enjoyable experience, at all.

"Yeah, I know. I can relate to what you're going through. My name is Jean."

"You're Jean Grey. You're like the others!" She frantically started to back away, so I decided to not move an inch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black speck move from building to building, so I knew I had backup.

"Relax. If you know who I am, then you know I won't hurt you. Look, it's tough to go it solo. Hey, zero pressure, but if you want to talk more you can reach me anytime with this communicator."

I telekinetically handed her a communicator that was shaped like a test tube, all she would have to do is push the button and she could get a hold of me, immediately.

"Latest fashion accessory, huh?" She smiled a little bit at me, and then her eyes bugged out of her head, I looked behind me and saw Storm and Cyclops ran up to me.

"We all have one." Storm asked, as she walked up.

"You! You. No. You won't take me!" She then bolted in the opposite direction,

"No, wait!" Scott yelled, and attempted to dive for her, but she teleported out at the last minute and he landed in a pile of mud.

"I don't get it. We were connecting and then…"

"Then she saw me." Storm finished, "For some reason, she's afraid of me." Storm looked a little surprised at that, because we were all wondering how Mystique could replicate her powers. We knew it was her, but we didn't want to freak out the rogue mutant.

"Well, she looked pretty beat. She can't have gone far." Scott said, as he wiped the mud off of his face and then he took off trying to find her.

**-Derek POV-**

I followed Rogue into a building, and I hid in the shadows, I didn't want to freak her out, but I didn't want her to be alone either. She was in a tomb, hiding against the side of the middle stone structure, she was curled up against the side.

'She is probably terrified' I thought to myself,

I looked around and saw a hole in the ceiling, and I was shocked when Scott came down and said "Thought you could escape us, did you? The X-Men don't leave loose ends." Before 'Scott' could continue anymore, I came out of the shadows, "Back off," Rogues eyes widened, and she fled the building, I turned to face 'Scott' before 'he' could go after her.

"Drop the act Mystique, I know its you." 'Scott' then transformed into a blue woman with blood red hair and a white dress that is kind of like a jumpsuit as well, with a belt that had a small skull symbol on it.

She gave me a glare, and asked me "Who are you?" I heard an explosion outside, and I decided to ignore it.

"Charles' first student. He found me with Storm and Wolverine. Now tell me, why do you want to have this mutant under control?" I let the question hang, and a second later I had the answer "Unless… You want her to have limitless power, which would be good for your friend, the master of magnetism himself."

She stared at me with wide eyes, and then her glare hardened. She yelled out "How could you have possibly known that?!"

I decided to scare her a little, "It's a part of my mutation." I made my eyes glow behind my sunglasses, she still doesn't know my mutation yet, but I might as well throw her off a little bit. "Also, I was the one who bugged your office."

She growled and then charged at me, using a form I recognized in Taekwondo, so I decided to counter with karate, I didn't want her to know I was versed in over twenty different martial arts.

She quickly charged me, delivering a flying kick toward my face; I think she had the intent of knocking me out. However, before she could, I caught her foot, however, I was surprised, 'Damn! She has the strength of Wolverine!'

She then swung her other leg around, and luckily, I blocked it with my other arm, and I threw her across the room. But she got up and came at me again, except a little more cautiously, she underestimated me, and I knew from then on, she would play dirty.

We exchanged blows, and with my reflexes, I was lucky enough to catch her by surprise at times. I even matched her strength, which threw her off as well.

She tried different martial arts, but I did my best to counter them, and the best part was that she had enhanced reflexes and stamina, just like Wolverine, and myself, although mine are not natural. She got in several blows, but soon discovered I had a high durability.

Realizing that this fight was going nowhere, she turned into a crow and flew away. I thought about using my powers to bring her down to the Earth again, but it would be better if she didn't know about my other powers. That way, I could surprise her in the next fight if we met again.

'Which we will.'

I walked outside, and saw most of the place in ruins. I saw the X-men and quickly ran over to them. They all turned toward me, Logan asked me in a slightly hostile voice "Prove to us that you're Graviton." His claws came out and aimed at my chest.

Cyclops attempted to come to my defense, "Is his scent Gravitons?"

"Yes, but scents can be masked and changed." Wolverine told him.

I looked over at the group and nodded, "I agree with Wolverine, this could potentially be a deception, we need to be ready for anything. It's okay Scott, besides, I have the perfect way to prove that I'm, well me."

I smirked, "Wolverine remember that time you took me to the car auction, and you went up to this girl and whispered in her ear."

He quickly put away the claws and clamped a hand over my mouth. "It's him." I smiled cheekily, knowing that I couldn't have ever said that in front of everyone, until now.

"Now, Graviton, what happened to you?" the Professor asked me, and I told him about my fight with Mystique, and how I surprised her with my "powers". Wolverine was the only one that laughed when I told him that she still didn't know what my main powers are and that I kept them a secret.

Then Kurt woke up in Kitty's arms when they were both on the ground.

-The Graveyard, Six Minutes Earlier-

**-Scott POV-**

I was searching for the rogue mutant, she could be in any buildings in this cemetery, and it's difficult to pinpoint her, especially since she is very unpredictable. I was walking in front of a tomb, and then I saw her run out, she looked at me. I let my guard down, thinking she was going to be friendly. Oh how wrong I was in the end.

I could tell that she must have been spooked by something, what could she have seen? She then pushed me down; fortunately, I landed in a pile of soft mud, again. Unfortunately, my lenses opened up and blasted a power line, sending electric currents and sparks everywhere.

'Lovely, yet another accident, I need to see if the Professor can improve these, make it harder for the flap in the visor to open and close.

I got up slowly, and noticed that the rogue mutant teleported away, I saw Jean in the distance helping her up, so I decided to run over there and see if I could help in any way. As I was running I overheard Jean and Storm talking with her.

"Are you hurt? Lie still, I want to make sure you're okay." Jean asked her, but she backed away, she was still afraid of us.

"Child, what is it? We are your friends." I heard Storm say, but in a move of self-defense, she grabbed Storm, and she flew back at least fifteen feet, and lightning started firing everywhere.

I ran up, "Hey, what's with the effects? Is? Oh, no! No!"

I saw the girl in the middle of a tornado, with lightning surrounding her and a mini cyclone swarming in the sky, it was pretty scary that we had to deal with this at the moment. I saw trees being uprooted, and Jean and I started at the girl with disbelief.

Jean created a weak force field around us, "I can hold it off a little."

I told her, "Give it up. She's got Storm's powers, but not her control."

We stayed in the force field, quickly taking in our surroundings, there were buildings that crumbled down, and winds that could uproot trees, but we saw something that shocked us even more. Storm was in a small pond that formed, and lightning struck some power lines nearby.

I had to tell Jean, "The power lines! If they hit that water, Storm will be fried."

'This is probably one of the most dangerous missions I have ever been on.'

We both sprinted toward Storm, and I jumped in the water and picked her up, before the power line struck the ground, Jean used her telekinesis to levitate us out of the way. It was a close call, but no one was hurt.

I looked over to Jean, who looked extremely strained. "I can't keep us up for long." Unfortunately, her telekinesis was nowhere near the strength of Gravitons levitation powers, but her telekinesis was more reliable apparently, according to Graviton.

I looked up to the sky and overheard the mutant scream "Too much power! I can't control it! I have to AHHH!" She teleported away, her powers from Nightcrawler have not worn off yet.

As soon as she disappeared, the weather changed drastically, Jean slowly levitated us to the ground.

I saw the Professor roll up with Shadowcat, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler passed out in Wolverines arms.

Wolverine put down Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat went down to his level.

I saw Graviton run up from one of the few buildings still standing. Everyone turned to him, wondering where he was during the whole debacle outside. He looked around, it looked like he was a little shocked about the damage, but he hid it quite well.

It also looked like he was a little beaten up. Not badly, but he had a slight bruise on his cheek.

'Who could bruise someone like Graviton?' He was by far the best fighter on the team; he was kind of like our 'tank' at the moment because of his durability. He knew loads of martial arts and had the most insane reflexes.

"Prove to us that you're Graviton." Wolverine yelled, his claws came out and aimed at his chest.

I decided to come to his defense, I mean seriously, how could this not be the genuine article?

"Is his scent Gravitons?" I ask Wolverine.

"Yes, but scents can be masked and changed." Wolverine told me. I shook my head; he must be really paranoid about this Mystique person if he is questioning one of his closest friends at the institute. Wolverine saw all of the students as children, except Graviton, we don't know why, but they get along like friends instead of like father and son.

He looked over the group, and looked me directly in my visor and nodded, "I agree with Wolverine, this could potentially be a deception, we need to be ready for anything. It's okay Cyclops, besides, I have the perfect way to prove that I'm, well me."

He smirked, "Wolverine remember that time you took me to the car auction, and you went up to this girl and whispered in her ear."

He quickly put away the claws and clamped a hand over my mouth. "It's him." He smiled cheekily,

'He probably knew this was the one time he could partially tell that story to everyone without getting beat up by Logan.'

"Now, Graviton, what happened to you?" the Professor asked him, and I have to say, I was extremely curious.

He looked at the Professor, and told everyone how he cornered Mystique and fought her. He never showed off his true potential, so Mystique thinks he is just some mutant with enhanced strength, reflexes, speed, and durability.

'Note to self: Never underestimate Mystique, under any circumstances.'

Then Kurt stirred in Kitty's arms when they were both on the ground. While Storm moved a little on the ground where we leaned her onto the side of a wall.

"What do you think happened to the rogue?" I asked the Professor.

"She's gone somewhere. Her mind is a jumble. I can't trace it. But this was definitely the work of Mystique." We could confirm that, not only because of Graviton but Wolverine also sniffed the air and smelled her.

"Then we have to go after her!" Shadowcat exclaimed, her fists were crunched up, and I could tell she wanted to hunt down Mystique, but there were also downsides to searching for her now.

"There's been enough damage done today. The girl must come of her own free will or not at all. We must first tend to our own." The Professor told us an explanation, and I totally agreed.

Nightcrawler got up and looked around, and all he could see is wreckage of the graveyard, as far as the eye could see at the moment. "Looks like I missed quite a party."

Shadowcat turned around, and grabbed him around the arm, giving him a partial hug. "Kurt, you're all right! Easy, you fuzzy elf. Everything is going to be just fine."

"Fuzzy elf?" I mouthed to Nightcrawler, who gave me a look that showed he didn't know what was happening at the moment. I turned to Graviton, who had a smile on his face; I think he is happy that Kitty finally accepted Kurt for his true appearance.

-In the Graveyard-

**-Derek POV-**

We all piled into the X-van on the way back to the airport, since it was nearly dawn, Wolverine and I would pilot. I'd be fine not sleeping; I don't need much of it anyway. Wolverine's body keeps regenerating; turns out our bodies have a hard time getting tired, so as long as we ate lots of food, I think we'll be fine.

Anyways, I drove us back to the Blackbird, and everyone boarded fairly quickly, I put the van on board, and by the time Wolverine and I prepped the plane, nearly everyone was asleep, except for the Professor, Wolverine and I.

I looked at the time. 'So it's four in the morning, no wonder everyone was out like a light.' We took off, and the three of us were up for the next hour, we talked during the flight. The Professor was quite proud of everyone during the mission. We all agreed Scott would be the future leader of the team. This raised a concern about my future at the institute, I know Scott is a much better leader than me, no doubt about it, I was just wondering if I will be just a member of the team.

We then talked about the incoming students in the middle of the summer; Charles told us that there would be roughly eight or nine students coming to the institute. I was also informed that I was being placed in an advisory position at the institute.

'Guess that answers my question about my role in the institute.'

Apparently, it means I have the same ranking as Scott, except I will be a teacher and mentor, not team leader. It also means that I will have a bedroom and bathroom in the adult wing, which made me grin,

'Looks like I wont have to share a bathroom anymore! Yes!'

It also really flattered me that he would do this, so I decided I would do my best to make him and Wolverine proud.

We also talked about the new projects I was doing, such as the creation of an actual running quantum computer and the 'aircraft' I was building in the hanger. Wolverine was in on this little secret, so we told the professor that the aircraft was meant to go in space, and to say he was shocked was an understatement. He understood why we didn't tell the rest of the institute yet, as it was still a work in progress. We agreed to tell everyone about the new spacecraft after it has been tested, and made sure that it works properly.

I designed it to be large, so it can stay in space for at least a week, maybe two since I designed it with a wicked filtration system. However, the catch is that only two people could go up at once, and the problem is that we couldn't do any long-term experiments until we had a small satellite in orbit, which could take a while to set up.

He was wondering where we could get these funds from, I smirked, and told him that due to a patent that I submitted, which, by the way, can make a standard computer twice as fast, you would be surprised how much the technology sector would pay to have that information. It would be obsolete in the next two years, but hey, hopefully I'll catch up and go ahead another two years by then.

We landed in the institute, and since everyone was asleep, I levitated them all to their bedrooms. It wasn't too difficult, I concentrated while Wolverine helped me push them down the halls and lay them on their beds. The rest of us went to bed, and I woke up at six forty, raring to go for the day.

I went to breakfast at about nine thirtyish, the only people not up yet were Kurt, Jean, and

Kitty. Otherwise, it was a quiet day; we hung out by the pool, and just sat around and relaxed after yesterdays assignment.

'Ah, this next week is going to be relaxing,' I thought to myself.

-Sunday Morning, Bayville High School-

**-Mystique POV-**

I was stuck, I had no idea who I faced off against yesterday, I know of his appearance because I saw him when he was driving the van, and used him to scare Rogue.

I had no idea who this student was, all I knew was he had inhuman reflexes, speed, strength, and agility. I knew that he also exuded power, you could tell by his posture and his attitude when he was fighting.

Anyways, at least I got Rogue to join the brotherhood. I smirked "Welcome to Bayville High. I'm sure you'll be very happy here. Happy and safe." I said in my appearance as Principal Darkholme.

"Sure. Thank you." Rogues said, and she walked out, probably back to the boarding house I was renting.

I turned to my desk, and saw that all the metal objects were floating above, and I saw the paperclips fly in formation around my desk. He was here, "The girl has great power. She is a fine addition to our side."

"Yes. We were lucky to get to her first." I told him, I knew that it was a close call, so I decided to ask if he knew anything.

"Indeed." He said, then he added, "You are certain any residual memories of the true X-Men have faded?"

"Positive." I told him, although there was something nagging on my mind, so I decided to ask Magneto a question.

"Magneto, do you know of Charles Xavier's first student at the institute?"

"No, why do you ask?" Now I was frustrated, how could he not know about him! I sent out a feral growl.

"He was dangerous, I felt as though he was toying with me slightly when we were fighting." Magneto raised an eyebrow at that, he knew that not many people could stand up to me in a hand to hand fight.

"Keep a closer eye on that boy, and I shall do it on my end as well" He told me, I nodded, and then he flew out of the window.

What she didn't know, was that the computer in her office had a microphone and built in camera, and a certain mutant at the institute heard the entire conversation…

**Hello Everyone, if there is anyway I can make the story better, just send me a message or write a review, and I'll see what I can do. If you want to, answer the poll on my profile page!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I don't own X-men Evolution, it is owned by Marvel, which, in turn is owned by Disney. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!**

-The Institute-

**-Derek POV-**

The Sunday before we went back to school, everyone was relaxing doing their own thing. I decided that I am going to push myself and increase my strength, speed, and durability. Who knows when it'll come in handy? Right now I was lifting about two tons. I could have made it lighter, so light that someone like Kitty could lift it, but I needed to condition myself.

After several hours of brutal conditioning, I had a thought about what I could do before we go back to school tomorrow. I took a quick shower and changed, quickly getting everything together for her surprise. I had a spare computer, it was four years old, but it was nearly three times better than the laptop Kitty had now, and it also would help her with her studies in computer science.

I got the computer out of my lab and brought it upstairs. I knocked on her door, and I heard a muffled "Come in!"

I opened the door, and saw that she was laid out on her bed, in her nightgown. I was blushing slightly since she looked gorgeous, I don't think she noticed though.

'I guess I lost track of time during conditioning, I hope I'm not to late.' I thought to myself, and I proceeded to ask her "Is this a bad time? I hope I'm not interrupting anything…"

"Nope, its all good I was just finishing off this email and then I was going to bed, what's up?" She asked me, it looked like she was sporting a slightly flushed face.

"Well, this will only take a couple of minutes, remember when I said I can help you out with your studies in computer science?" I asked her, remembering back to that time I was helping her with that program she was creating.

"Yeah, I was actually working on it earlier today, when were we going to start our lessons?" She asked me, I could see a slight gleam in her eye, and she looked really excited.

"Well, here is step one!" I pulled the cloth off of the computer I had built years ago, and her eyes got really big, "This computer is one I built myself several years ago, although it is still probably about two and a half times faster than the laptop you have there."

She squealed a little and got up off of the bed quickly and gave me a hug, saying "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

I helped her set it up quickly and then she asked me, "So, like, when do my lessons start Derek?"

I looked at her and smiled, "Any time you want them to start, their already uploaded on the computer." She still had an excited look in her eyes, but at the same time, she looked a little disappointed.

'Why does she look disappointed? I thought she would be happy about this.'

"Kitty," She looked up at me, "If you ever need help understanding anything though, I'll be there every step of the way." I told her, she looked appeased, but still slightly let down. "Well, I should be heading to bed as well, Kitty, you know, early start for school tomorrow and what not…" Only two people knew I needed only two hours of sleep, and it was going to remain that way for a long time. "By the way, who are you riding with tomorrow?"

I smirked because over the past week and a half Kitty has ridden with Scott in the Lamborghini, which she hasn't minded at all, especially since she found him 'cute, and a together person', and it's a Lamborghini. Kurt has been riding with me in the sidecar. He normally got excited when he rid in it because no one else had one, and also we drew the looks of a lot of girls on the way to school. According to him, chicks "dig the fuzzy dude" when he is in the sidecar, or maybe its just because they are laughing at him. Who knows?

"Jean offered me a ride with Duncan, but that would be really awkward, and I know I would feel like the third wheel." She told me, and I could feel her 'pain'. Being the third wheel is never fun.

"Tell you what Kitty, Scott got his car back today, and I know Kurt wants to ride with him all this week, so unfortunately all I've got is a Lamborghini and no company…" I said, although she quickly answered, she must have been desperate not to ride with Duncan and Jean.

"I'll tell Jean I found a ride in the morning." She said, and I saw a bright smile on her face.

"Great! I'll see you in the morning then. Goodnight!" I said, and then I shut the door, I went downstairs and had some food before I went to bed. I woke up two hours later, and then started working on the spacecraft I was building. I was so close to finishing the engine and other systems! Then all I would need to do is build the outer hull out of strong plating.

'I wonder if the Professor will let me take a test flight by myself in the next couple of months.' I thought to myself. I looked at my watch and it showed that it was seven thirty in the morning. 'Well, looks like it is time for breakfast!' I quickly left the hangar, took a quick shower, and then had some breakfast. I was the first one down there, but everyone else came slowly and surely.

We left at the usual time, and I had a lovely discussion with Kitty about the major achievements in computer science, personally, I thought the enigma machine was the most important and surprisingly Kitty agreed with me. It turns out she also learned rudimentary hacking skills.

Over the course of my time at the Institute, I have done my fair share of hacking. I have even hacked government files to make sure the institute's true purpose wasn't unveiled.

-Flashback-

-Five Years Ago-

I was working in the technology lab, building a new computer that could potentially revolutionize the industry, at the time; however, in the next two years it would be rendered obsolete. When suddenly, I saw a flash on the screen, and then I noticed that the firewall was repelling an attack, it looked like somebody was trying to hack us!

I quickly typed up several commands and stopped the attack on our network. Luckily, the firewall I designed held up. Now, it was my turn. I found out all about the attacker and who it was, I traced it back to the source, apparently it was an organization called "S.H.I.E.L.D". Once I confirmed it was indeed them who attempted to hack us, I responded, and copied all of the information I found on their database.

The next day I told Logan, about the incident and he burst out laughing. "We're in for it now Derek! I used to work for that organization, and their business is to know everything about anything. Be prepared when they try and recruit you!" He chuckled again, knowing something that I didn't, and I hate being misinformed.

We were both in the garage, he was teaching me about historic automobiles and motorcycles. Several minutes later, however, we saw a helicopter descend from the sky, containing an African American man in a black with a large overcoat with the "S.H.I.E.L.D" insignia on it. For some reason he also had an eye patch, 'must have been from a horrible accident'.

Wolverine and I walked up to the people on our lawn. Charles and Ororo were helping out a new student today, apparently his parents and his little brother died in a plane crash. He had nothing and they were helping him settle into the institute. We were all hopeful that we could help him out with his powers, and hopefully, become his surrogate family.

"Logan," the tall African American greeted. 'So this is Nick Fury, luckily I read most of their files before they got here.'

"Fury," Logan responded, it looked like he tensed up a little, "Why are you here?"

The man named Fury hardened his gaze, and slightly glared at Logan, "Do you know why I'm here Logan?"

Logan smirked a little bit, "Is it because your people got knocked out of our computer system? Or do you have a mission for me?"

Fury gave a full glare at Logan, "How do you know about that?"

"That would be because of me." I answered, unfazed.

Fury looked down at me "What if I didn't believe you?"

I smirked up a little at him. "Well make sure to tell Agent Romanoff and Barton that her undercover assignment in Russia…"

Before I could finish, Fury interrupted me, "So you're the little devil that copied our entire database."

Logan let out a roar of laughter, "You're telling me that pipsqueak here" I gave him a glare, "Copied all of your files right out from under your nose?" He continued to chuckle, I think he found a new respect for me today.

"Retaliation for attempting to hack the institutes database, and a lesson, never underestimate how much damage you can do from a computer."

Fury gave me a slightly appraising gaze.

'Wonder what he is thinking at the moment…' Luckily I already have a plan since I read the database, and memorized it.

"Kid, you've got some guts, and a lot of know how, how would you like to come in and help our computer scientists update our systems?"

If it was possible, my smirk got even wider "Director Fury," I pulled out a small capsule, "This capsule contains all of the information you, misplaced," I paused, relishing in the moment, and Logan chuckled next to me, "and a way to improve your firewall and computer security to the level of the institutes." If it was possible, Director Fury's eye widened.

'Guess you can surprise anyone, even the super spy.'

"However, I will only give you this capsule if you do two things for me." His eyes narrowed at me, anticipating what I could possibly ask for, after all, its not every day you see a twelve year old making demands to one of the most dangerous organizations on the planet.

"One, I need you to create an alias for me, one that makes me ten years older" This was so I could submit patents, as I have some inventions that could be sold on the global market, but they don't take a twelve year old seriously.

"Two, if I ever see your organization attempt to stick their nose into the institutes mainframe again, lets just say, you'll learn the same lesson again, except with more… collateral damage." I wasn't going to do much, but it was just a warning, I don't like it when other people mess with my computer system.

Wolverine nodded his head in consent; at least I had some back up in this matter.

Fury looked contemplative, but then he looked me in the eyes, "As long as you don't do the same with "S.H.I.E.L.D", we have got a deal."

I nodded my head, we shook on it, and I handed him the capsule. "This capsule contains the ten terabytes of data that you need, another five hundred gigabytes is information for programming a new firewall. Have your scientists review it, also, the scientists will be able to confirm that I don't have a back up on the institutes computer, so this is all that's left."

He nodded, and started to go back to the helicopter. He hopped on to the helicopter and turned to us, "Your false identity will be ready within several hours," He paused, "It's been a pleasure." He added sarcastically. Wolverine chuckled next to me, and we watched as the helicopter disappeared into the horizon. I was pondering to myself, I made a good move in making them give me a fake alias for the patents. On the downside, Fury and "S.H.I.E.L.D" will make sure to never underestimate me again.

Logan chuckled next to me, "I've seen a lot of things in my life, but this event, by far, takes the cake. I never thought I would see the day that the great Nick Fury was forced to negotiate, with a twelve year old."

We then went back into the garage, and worked on Logan's motorcycle. When Charles, Ororo, and Scott got back, Logan and I decided to tell Charles what happened. He was quite not amused, one bit, but was slightly reassured that S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't attempt to hack the Institute, again. Logan told us Fury was a man of his word.

-Flashback End-

When we arrived at school, it was a normal day, and as the week progressed, things started to change a little bit. I started conditioning myself at fourteen times gravity, unknown to the rest of the team, because most of the time I trained by myself, and also because I surpassed the skills of the current X-men. I did participate in the team building exercises though. But since I am going to be a teacher and advisor at the institute next year, I need to be a little ahead of the group.

Next Saturday, Jean and Logan left for a recruitment mission to Texas. While they were doing that, Kurt, Scott, Kitty and I were in the library. While I was reading a research paper called _A Proposed Methodology for the Creation of Solid Light Structures in Holography _by Reed Richards_,_ a brilliant scientist who I believe is slightly smarter than me, at the moment. I really enjoy reading his work though, and hopefully someday I can talk to him about some of my work.

'I think he is planning on conducting research on a space station sometime in the next year.'

Anyways, I was helping Kitty with her programming while reading the article. Kurt sat with us, working on a project that was due in the next few days, and it was a research paper about a battle in World War II. I helped him as best I could, I remembered all of the stories Logan told me about World War II, and I told him about it, hoping it would help his paper. Scott was sitting down, reading an automotive magazine, and working on his math homework at the same time.

A few hours later, we were all relaxing in the lounge, watching a movie. Since Kitty nor Kurt saw _Inception_, Scott and I immediately decided to watch that, hoping to both attempt to end our debate with the ending, and at the same time watch Kurt and Kitty's heads explode from the sheer mind blowing plot twists of this movie.

'I am at least a tenth level intellect and my mind is still blown out of proportion for the ending. IS HE STILL DREAMING OR IS IT ALL REAL?!'

In the middle of the movie, Jean and Logan arrived back, Logan did not look happy at all and Jean had a sad face, we all asked her what was wrong.

"Looks like the Brotherhood has a new member now." And then she gave us a slight smile. "On the bright side, I brought us some new food to try from Texas!" We all looked at her like she was nuts, but I had a gut feeling on where this is going.

She pulled out a bag from behind her back, and she each handed us a different food item. "Now, what we have here is deep fried butter." As she pointed to Kitty's plate, "Deep fried Oreos," she pointed at Scotts plate, "Kurt, Derek, since you guys have the accelerated metabolism, I wanted to see if you guys could handle Chocolate dipped jalapeños, and," she pulled out two more smaller bags, and when we opened them, our eyes got really big, "Doughnut cheeseburgers." Kitty turned a slightly greenish color, and Kurt and I laughed, and we high fived each other, "Bring it on!"

We all watched as everyone tried his or her foods, Kitty tried one piece and couldn't eat the rest of her plate. "This is like, the grossest thing I have ever tasted in my life!" Kurt and I decided to try one, and liked it a lot, although I think that was the accelerated metabolism talking.

Scott decided to go next, and tried his deep fried Oreos. "Not bad," he answered, at that point, I wasn't sure if he was pretending they were good, to make Jean happy, or if they were actually good.

Everyone looked at Kurt and I expectantly, we both agreed to try the burger first. We each took a bite; both paused, and then swallowed slowly. We both looked at each other, and then quickly devoured the rest of it, before anyone else wanted to try it.

I looked at everyone, "That was probably one of the most amazing, yet disgusting, things I have ever eaten in my life."

Kurt nodded vigorously, "If this is the food that America is most proud of, I most definitely agree!"

The others looked at us incredulously; they couldn't believe that we enjoyed the burger that much. So then we decided to try the chocolate jalapeños.

I looked at Kurt, "One," we each picked one off our plate "Two," we put the Jalapeño over our mouths, "Three," we dropped it in our mouth and chewed.

The texture was a little off for my liking, but the taste was a spicy chocolate, which stung the taste buds, but not to much. 'This is actually quite good.' I thought to myself. For some reason Kurt immediately spit it out, and ran out of the room to get some water. He came back a little later, and we finished the movie. Since Jean already saw it with Scott and I, we were all having a debate about the ending.

I patted my stomach, I was pretty much full after a seven course dinner and those deep-fried foods.

I then heard Scott put on a French accent "One wafer thin mint for the gentleman?" We burst out laughing and are soon rolling on the ground in laughter and everyone looks at us like we're crazy.

After much explaining later, Scott and I couldn't believe they haven't heard of Monty Python. After that we had a discussion about the funniest movie ever, Mel Brooks name came up several times, courtesy of Kitty. Kurt thought Dumb and Dumber was pretty hilarious. We all looked at the time and we saw that it was nearly eleven, and we all had school tomorrow, so we all went to bed.

As usual, I woke up two hours later, and went down into the hangar, working on the plane, today was the day I started adding the thermo shield to it so the aircraft could re-enter Earths atmosphere safely. I was done with part of the front by the time it was eight in the morning.

We all split up in the morning. Kurt, Kitty, Jean and Scott took his car to school, while I followed on my motorcycle. When we arrived, we all split up and were all walking to class. Jean and I had a similar schedule due to our similar interests. The one class we didn't share was AP English. There was a large turnout for AP English, so it was split into two classes with two teachers. I had Scott and Paul in my class, so at least I wasn't sitting through English alone.

Jean and I were walking to AP Physics, discussing the modern affairs of the world. However, we turned the corner and saw Jeans boyfriend, Duncan Matthews, being cornered by a new student. He wore overalls and was, quite frankly huge. I could also detect, no joke, that he had his own gravitational field when he was on the ground.

I saw Jean step into action, and decided to observe from a distance, if she needed me, I was right behind her.

"Whoa!" I heard the large boy in overalls say,

"Oh, hi. You must be new here. I'm Jean Grey." Jean said, as she stepped toward him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Duncan run away, which made me snicker silently.

"Oh, yeah, I am, new I mean." He said, I saw him scratch the back of his head, and his face was slightly red,

'Oh Jean, looks like you have another admirer.' I thought.

"I figured. Welcome to Bayville. So, what do your friends call you?" Jean asked, a feigned curious expression on her face.

"Don't know. Never had any friends. But my name is Fred. Fred Dukes." He responded, and I felt a little pity for him, I knew that feeling a while ago, but that all changed.

"Well, Fred, I want to apologize for Duncan. He can be a real idiot sometimes." I almost rolled on the floor laughing when I heard that, but I kept my composure. "Did you need any help figuring this out?" I noticed she was holding a piece of paper, probably his schedule.

"Yes. Please." He responded

Jean looked at his schedule, and quickly pointed in the forward direction. "Okay. Your first class is right over there."

"Thanks." He responded.

"Don't worry. The first day's always the roughest. It gets better. I'll see you around." She said as she walked toward me, and we both started walking to AP Physics, resuming our discussion as if nothing interrupted it.

I heard a growl from behind me, and then a muttered, "You sure will."

We sat in AP Physics, did a lab involving roller coasters, where we calculated the potential and kinetic energy at certain points. My group finished first, since I did the work in my head within two seconds, and wrote it all down. Unfortunately, I had to write much slower to not create suspicion.

After AP Physics, I went to AP English, where I sat on Scott's right, and Paul sat on his left. This week we were doing a unit on Drama, and most of the class was not looking forward to it.

"All right, for this drama exercise, you'll each be doing a scene with a partner.

Since a few of you haven't chosen partners, I'll be pairing you up myself." The teacher told us, about half the class did not partner up with one another, so we waited to find out who are partners were. After several minutes, we all found out.

"Taryn, you and Paul will do Laura and Jim from The Glass Menagerie." The teacher told them, each handing them a five-page script.

'Well, Paul is very lucky, I think he likes Taryn.'

"You and you." The teacher pointed at the girl, now identified as Rogue, and Scott."

"Great." I heard Scott mumble to himself, not liking this project in the first place.

"Lots of luck, Scott. I don't think Miss Small, Dark, and Sullen has ever said two words. You'll have to play both parts yourself." I heard Paul say, and then everyone laughed out loud, causing disruption in the class.

"You two will be doing Shakespeare's Henry V. I've marked it. Henry and Katherine, daughter of the French King." He told them and then he walked up to the front, getting ready to explain what to do for the project.

I raised my hand, and asked "Sir, what am I going to do for the assignment?"

"Derek! I forgot that I had an odd number in here," I saw him reach into his desk and pull out some papers, "Right, here is your script. Henry V as well, except you will be saying the monologue of Canterbury in Scene II. You'll have to do this by yourself since there are no other partners left."

Some of the girls, I noticed, pouted and had disappointed looks on their faces. I looked down and my script, and flipped through it, luckily with my memory, I had it already memorized.

I looked up front, "All right, class. I want you to get together with your scene partner and rehearse. You perform on Tuesday next week. Now start talking with your partner and start memorizing your lines."

I then pulled out my AP Physics homework and decided to finish it in the five minutes until the bell rang.

I heard Scott mumble to Rogue, "Hey, you okay with this?"

"I'm not afraid of you." I heard Rogue say in a defensive voice.

"I didn't say you should be." I overheard him say while everyone was reading his or her script.

"Just tell your weird friends to keep their distance this time." I heard Rogue respond, and the bell went off and she walked off.

"Oh, yeah. She likes you. She's just playing hard to get." I heard Paul tell Scott cheekily, I had to chuckle a little at that.

'Playing hard to get? Nice one Paul, if only you knew…'

"Shut up, Paul! And stop laughing Derek!"

Scott and I grabbed our lunches from our lockers and went to the Cafeteria. Normally, every Monday and Thursday, we, the people of the institute ate lunch together in the Cafeteria. I sat between Kitty and Scott.

We were eating our lunches, Kurt and I finished ours ages ago, and I noticed Fred walk into the cafeteria, and get into line, shoving a sophomore out of the way, and the lunch lady piled food onto his tray, in the end it was at least twelve inches high.

"Is that humongous guy the one you and Logan, like, went to see Saturday night?" Kitty asked Jean, who was munching on a sandwich right now.

"Yeah, Fred. He's okay when he's not ripping lockers off the wall." She smirked a little, remembering our run in with him in the morning.

"He's the one who, like, did that? Freaky." She said, even though she could phase through walls like they just weren't there.

The conversation then turned to Scott and Kurt, and his hilarious situation with Rogue, "You and the Rogue? Now that is a strange combination, yeah?" Kurt asked, a slight smirk on his impish face on the moment.

"Yeah. I gotta play a romantic scene with a girl who thinks we tried to kill her. She's gonna have to be some kind of actress." He told him, his arms were crossed and he was slightly sulking a little.

"My friend, you have got to invite me to the rehearsals." Kurt said, laughing, as we all laughed at Scott's predicament at the moment. Soon, Scott, Kitty and I joined in. While I was laughing, I noticed Fred give us a glare.

'Wonder why he did that?'

I saw him sit down at a table by himself, but unfortunately, the chair could not support his weight. I actually found this out the hard way several months ago, and everyone still laughs at me about that. Anyways, as soon as the chair broke, the table broke as well, sending food flying over everyone, and right into Duncan, who I think was flirting with cheerleaders at the moment.

Scott and I started laughing at Duncan's predicament. The two of us really don't like him, at all. He is kind of a jerk to everyone, except Jean, the American football players, and the cheerleaders.

"Bad move, Blob Boy." We heard him yell across the cafeteria. Two large linebackers backed him up as well.

"You're so dead!" He said, and started walking over to Fred, who earlier fell down on his arse, covered in food.

"Stay here, Kitty. This could get messy." Scott listened to her, and stayed at the table to back her up. "Yeah. Because, like, that hasn't already happened." I heard Kitty say, so I grabbed Kurt and Kitty and we briskly walked toward the wall. An exit was literally within reach if necessary.

"Don't laugh at me!" Fred screamed, his entire face was red, and he chucked some of his food toward Duncan, who was walloped in the face by a sloppy joe. Soon, food was flying everywhere,

"Excuse me. I'm skipping dessert." Kitty told me, and gave me a wink, and then phased through the wall. Kurt just teleported away when no one was looking.

'Amateurs,' I thought, and I used my inhuman reflexes to avoid food being thrown at me. Everyone else just fled the cafeteria, until only Scott, Jean, Fred and I were left.

"Fred. Fred, please calm down. Fred, stop!" Fred was swinging a table back and forth, and Jean was right underneath him after she slipped on some pudding.

Suddenly, a familiar concussive blast destroyed the table, and I saw Scott stood protectively over Jean.

"Put the table down, Fred!" Jean yelled, Fred wiped his eyes, and saw that Jean was indeed very nearly squished by his table.

"Jean?" He asked, genuinely surprised about his current predicament.

'If I were in his situation, I'd be pretty embarrassed.' I thought, and then a certain brunette came to mind. 'Bad thoughts! Dating a teammate will never work in the end. Or will it?'

"You heard her, big man. But if you want to fight, try me." Scott said, his hands already to his glasses, ready for practically anything to be thrown at him.

"Back off, Scott. I'll handle this." Jean told him, Scott just stood a little behind her, unwavering in his duty.

"Everything's fine. Isn't it, Fred?" Jean asked Fred in a friendly tone, and got a little closer to him.

"They shouldn't have laughed at me!" He yelled, still angry about the whole predicament he was in.

"No, they shouldn't." Jean told him, and then she turned around, "Scott, don't you have to get to class or something?" She asked him annoyed that he was still hovering over her.

"I'll be close if you need me. Real close." Scott said, as he walked toward the door, he turned one last time.

"I'll be fine!" Jean told him, he turned, and saw me leaning against the wall, I sent him a nod, and then he relaxed a little bit and walked out.

"It's just when they laugh at me, I kind of explode inside, you know?" He told her, looking at the floor, putting his two index fingers together.

"I understand, Fred. But you've got to learn to control yourself. You can get training." Jean sat on a table while he stood facing her.

"Yeah, right. Where?" He asked, 'Oh he'll be in for a shock in a second.'

"I learned to control my "gifts" at the institute where I live." She told him.

"Gifts? You mean, you have powers too?" He asked, shock etched on his face about where this was heading.

"Watch." She looked in the opposite direction of me, and then turned in my direction, and noticed me.

"Derek! Get out of here!"

"Fine, fine, I'm out, I was just reading a book though." I put the book I was "reading" away, and walked toward the door. I got outside, and saw Principal Darkholme walking away with Rogue, and Scott leaning against the wall.

"So, Scott, guessing you had a run in with Rogue?" I turned and smiled. I was opening my mouth, and then I was interrupted.

"Don't even go there!" He said, and I chuckled.

We stood there for another couple of minutes, and then we heard a muffled "Great. Well, I gotta run. I'll catch you later, Fred." And then Jean Scott opened the door for Jean while I still stood against the wall.

"Hey, Jean?" Jean turned toward the door,

"Yes?" She asked, wondering what was up.

"Nothing." He said quickly, and I knew he right then he was going to ask her out, but he chickened out at the last minute.

We all walked away and continued our day as normal. There was really nothing interesting that happened, our training and schedule continued like normal. I upped my training, so that I was not working with seventeen times gravity. The only one who knew was Wolverine, but he didn't tell anyone else because he liked sparring me, I have become, in his words, 'a formidable opponent.' In the span of three days, I am nearly halfway done with the outer shell of my spacecraft. The Professor and Wolverine were still the only ones that knew the true intention of that new ship in the hangar.

It was Thursday and I was walking down to my motorcycle, and I was walking with Taryn and Jean. We were talking about our homework that we had to do this weekend. Taryn was complaining about it, quite a lot actually.

"Like, there goes my weekend. Oh, I can't believe how much homework I've got." Taryn said, we actually did get a lot of homework this weekend; it was probably going to take me a whole hour to complete.

"Yeah. Me too." Jean told her, and then they both looked at me.

"Aren't you going to complain as well?" Taryn asked me, expecting me to not be happy with my homework load.

"I'll probably just pull an all nighter and get it done tonight. So I still have the weekend to myself. Later guys!" and I turned and walked off toward my motorcycle, eager to get going so I could work on some of my more interesting projects.

**-Jean Grey POV-**

We waved good-bye to Derek, and Taryn kept walking with me, she then asked me a question, "Jean, how could you not like Derek? Practically every girl in the girl swoons over him."

I laughed, although at one point I did have a crush on him, but I outgrew that, he is more like my older brother than anything at this point. "Taryn, I don't like him like that because he is like my older sibling."

"Okay fine, I see your point," conceded Taryn, "But living in the same house as him must be pretty interesting."

I smirked, "You have no idea." I told her. I then turned to walk forward, and I saw Fred approach me,

"Oh, hi, Fred." He was kind of staring at me, so I decided to diffuse the awkwardness between him and my friend.

"This is my friend Taryn." I told him, and gestured to my left.

"Yeah, hi." She said.

"Hi." Said Fred, still staring at me when he said it. 'This is getting kind of creepy.'

"Jean, would you? I mean, would you like to?... Wanna get a soda or something?..." He asked me, rubbing his hand behind his head, in a shy gesture.

'Is he asking me out? Because I would love to be his friend, but I already have a boyfriend…'

"Oh, sorry, Fred. I can't. I got some stuff I gotta do." I told him, I seriously had to go home and do homework, which would take me a long time, and then training. Also if I was late to training, Wolverine would not be happy with me and put me through an even more rigorous workout. I paused for a second, "Hey! How about if I catch up with you tomorrow? "

"Stuff, huh? That's the best you could come up with? Stuff?" He said angrily, and he tensed up a little bit, I needed to get Taryn out of here, she could be in danger.

"Taryn. You better go on without me. I'll catch up with you later." I told her, in a firm voice, and she looked a little worried.

"You gonna be okay?" She asked me, she was genuinely concerned for my safety.

"Yeah." Taryn turned and walked away, still stealing glances back toward us. But when she was a safe distance away

"Look, Fred. I like you and all. But I have responsibilities. That means I can't go with you right now." I turned to walk away, I needed to go to a place with people, just in case anything happened.

Suddenly, I felt my arm being grabbed. I tried to keep calm, but on the inside I was freaking out. This could go really downhill quickly.

"But you're my friend." He said, but unfortunately I had to rebut him.

"I thought so. But friends don't hurt each other." I slight glare was on my face,

"Now let go of me!" I yelled, hoping to get some help, but no one was in sight.

"Well, just let me talk to you for a second in private." He started dragging me behind the school, where construction was still happening, as the school was being refurbished.

As he was dragging me I yelled "I said let go of me, Fred. I have to go home." I told him.

"You can't." He stopped where he was, there was still a tight grip on my arm. We were in the construction area. "You gotta go out with me!" He said, in a very desperate voice.

'I need to defend myself, this might get ugly.' I thought to myself.

"I don't have to go anywhere but home! Now, let me go! I'm warning you!" I yelled, yet again, in a fresh attempt to escape my current predicament. When he didn't respond, I lobbed a cinderblock toward him,

"That the best you got?" I then started hurling numerous cinderblocks at him, but he swatted them away like flies, and then a huge dumpster, but he just punched that out of the way.

'He is quite powerful. This is not good at all!' I thought to myself, desperate to escape.

"I said let me go!" I yelled, and then one of the cinderblocks hit the construction structure, causing the entire thing to collapse. I screamed and the last thing I remember was the construction sight falling onto us, I felt something hit my head, hard. I felt as though I was slipping into a state of unconsciousness, and then all I saw was black.

**-Derek POV-**

I got home, and immediately went to work on my Ferrari, some parts came in earlier this week and I haven't had the time to work on it. But luckily, I do now. I saw Logan walk into the garage and smirk at me, he was still working on his Indian, but it was starting to look like beauty. After about an hour he left, looks like he is going to train Kurt and Kitty.

After about an hour of working on the Ferrari, I went to go see how training was going, after all I am going to be a part of the institute teaching staff soon. I saw Kitty running through several trees holding an American football while Kurt teleported around, trying to catch her.

After about half an hour of watching, I got a text from someone, and checked my phone. Turns out I got a text from Taryn, asking if Jean got home yet, because she didn't meet her at her car. I asked her what happened before she left.

I told Logan, and he as getting a little suspicious on why "Red" wasn't here yet.

He turned toward the keep away game Kitty and Kurt were playing, "Hey! That's it, half-pint. Keep the ball away from the elf. You gotta concentrate or…" A large smack emanated from where Kitty hit a tree branch, and it knocked her down.

"It's mine now, Kitty!" I heard Kurt shout,

"Give me that!" Yelled kitty and she charged toward Kurt, who teleported to safety. Or, supposed safety.

"Watch where you're portin'." I heard Wolverine growl out, and as soon as he said that, the branch broke underneath him and Kurt started to fall. Kitty then jumped through him, and got the ball. Kurt fell flat on his face, while Kitty was laughing at him.

"What kind of move is that?" I heard Logan grumble under his breath.

"Innovation, adaptation. It's what they're here to learn." We turned and saw the Professor roll up, he was smiling at the sight of Kurt chasing Kitty down. I looked down at my phone and read that the last person who talked to Jean was a giant teen called Fred.

The Professor suddenly scrunched his head in pain, and then Logan and I looked at the professor, slightly concerned that he was hurt.

"She's been kidnapped." He told us, and that is when we sprung into action, Logan started giving out orders.

"You, elf, get Cyclops." Logan told Kurt, "I gotta ride." And Logan and I sprinted off, and we got on the Institutes motorcycles, since Wolverine and I were the only ones with the license to drive them, our motorcycles screamed off the institute, in hot pursuit of Jean.

-In the Park-

**-Scott POV-**

We were sitting in the park, working on our lines and scene for English. 'I wish Derek was doing this instead of me.'

I started the scene, "Do you like me, Kate?"

"Pardonnez-moi?" answered Rogue, who sounded absolutely bored out of her mind. "I cannot tell what is like me." She answered, in a pretty bad French accent, but we can work out the kinks later.

"An angel is like you, Kate. And you are like an angel." I responded, as I motioned my hands to help me memorize my lines.

" The girls are right. You are a charmer." She said in a serious voice, but I was kind of getting annoyed at this point, she wasn't taking this to seriously, and we really needed to get a good grade on this assignment.

"Look, I'm just reading the lines, okay?" I responded, I really wanted to get this over with so I can get home and finish all of the homework that the teachers gave us today.

"Yeah, I know. It's just sometimes I wish…" She looked really sad, and I wanted to help her a little bit, even if she was with the brotherhood.

"Yeah? Wish what?" I asked her, genuinely curious about what could have her down.

"Wish I could get close to somebody. But you know what happens when I do." She looked down at her script, and refused to look me in the eye, until she said "I do". I was about to comfort her a little bit and then I heard a 'BAMF' and saw Kurt there in his uniform, crouching on the bench. Luckily there was no one else around at the moment.

"Tender moment here? Sorry to interrupt." He told us, and he looked at me.

Rogue looked a little freaked out, and said, "I swear, he's like an annoying little brother." She refused to look at Kurt.

"What's the problem?" I asked him, it must be something pretty bad if the Professor sent him out here to collect me.

"Jean's been nabbed." He told me, and one of my worst fears has been realized.

"What?!" I yelled, and grabbed his collars lifting him up slightly, Kurt was a little to calm right now for my liking.

"Easy on the exquisite costume. Wolverine's on the scent, and Graviton is following him, but I'm supposed to collect you." He told me, I relaxed a little when I heard Graviton and Wolverine were trying to track her scent. They wouldn't let anything happen to Jean, and they were mission partners for a few years as well. Before Jean and I went on missions, he went on them with Wolverine, scouting out mutants and helping them out. I instantly knew who did this though.

I slammed my hands on the table, "Blob! If he's hurt her, I'll!..." I noticed that Rogue turned her back to us, and it looked like she was hiding something. I decided to ask her and see if she knew. "You know anything about this?"

"No." She looked insulted "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell yah." She decided to add on, but she didn't sound serious about it.

"Then I hope you can live with your conscience." I told her, she looked away, and then I turned to Kurt, I put my hand on his shoulder, "Teleporter to maximum, ."

"Aye, captain!" Kurt said in his slightly Scottish accent, or at least his best attempt at it.

"Engage." We disappeared, and within minutes, we were back at the mansion.

When I got back, I quickly changed into my uniform and went to the operations room, one of the ten rooms underneath the institute. This was the room where the Professor monitored missions while we were out in the field. I only knew of five others, the rest were a mystery to the rest of us, even Derek, I think.

Nightcrawler, Shadowcat and I were standing in front of the Professor, "I've been in mental contact with Jean. But she has no idea where she is. All I can tell is that she, and Blob, are somewhere in this area." He told us; unfortunately his telepathy cannot pinpoint his exact location yet.

"Then let's move." I told everyone, and they nodded. We all ran upstairs to the garage, and grabbed my car. We floored it out of the institute, wanting to find Jean quickly.

-Mystery Location-

**-Jean Grey POV-**

I was tied up to a chair, powerless to do anything because I cant hurt the blob, and one wrong move could set this whole place up in flames, which would be very bad for us.

I looked over and saw my "date" for the night, Fred. "This is gonna be the best night you've ever had. Dinner, dancing," he said, but I interrupted him.

"Fred, this is all wrong. Now, you can't force someone to like you." I told him, thinking that I would remain calm and try and talk him out of doing this. He placed a napkin on my lap.

"Why not? I'm stronger than everyone." He told me, and at the same time, he stretched his arms up in the air, to emphasize his point.

"Being nice usually works better." I told him, hoping that he would get the general idea.

"Oh, yeah. I just remembered I've got a surprise for you." He told me, and then he opened the door, and I was stuck in the room by myself, 'Great' I thought to myself.

-Abandoned Ironworks, Bayville-

**-Derek POV-**

We pulled up to the sight of the abandoned ironworks, and I saw Wolverine take off his helmet, and sniff the air. He started talking into his watch, to let the Professor know we found them."We found them. They're at the old ironworks at the south end. We're going in."

"_Logan, Derek, wait for more backup."_ The Professor told us. Wolverine and I, however, decided to ignore that, between the two of us, we think we can handle this, so

Wolverine has the location. I saw his claws come out, and we flew to the roof, to scout the area and see what we could do.

Wolverine and I were sneaking through the abandoned ironworks. He sniffed the air, and signaled me to stop, and then we got into position behind the door. This opponent is going to be dangerous so I can't mess around.

Wolverine busted through the door first, and then proceeded to jump on his head, and punch him. Those punches tend to hurt, especially since his bones are coated in one of the densest metals in the world. However, the Blob just threw him off, across the room. I decided to approach from the side, and did a roundhouse kick toward his face, I hit him, and it sent him a little bit to the left, but he quickly recovered, and with a speed I was surprised at, smacked me into a wall.

I then heard Wolverine yell and charge him, but surprisingly, he avoided that as well, I decided to try my luck again, and this time I tried something they use in Krav Maga, and go for the weak points, I went for the back of his knees, as that would bring them down.

When I did that, I hit the point, and it brought him down on his knee at one point, but I could feel his own gravitational field battling mine, and he grabbed me while I was distracted and flung me into Wolverine, and that hurt both of us since I have dense muscle mass and he is practically made of metal.

He then picked up one of the machines bolted to the floor, and flung it at us. It hit the ground and started to skid toward us, but I stopped it using my gravitational powers. Wolverine quickly recovered and climbed to the ceiling, where he pounced on top of the Blob with his claws out. He grappled with Wolverine until the Blob successfully put the flattened Wolverine by putting his body on top of his.

I soon got up since I was a little disorientated, and quickly used my powers on the blob, but I was struggling, as he was generating his own gravitational field that effected my powers. I lessened the effect it had on Wolverine though, as he quickly scooted out

"She's my friend! You can't take her!" We heard the Blob yell. From all of that exertion using my powers, I took a knee panting heavily. 'Looks like I'm going to have to up my training even more.' I looked to my left and saw Cyclops shoot a warning shot over the Blob, and he soon helped me up, and then said, "We're just giving her a way out! Through you, if necessary."

He shot one of his blasts at the Blob, who surprisingly, was absorbing the impact. His gravitational field became stronger, holding him in place. He grabbed Wolverine, who was still on the ground next to him after his sneak attack, and chucked him toward Cyclops, who caught him, but flew through the air and landed on Wolverine and my bike, laying there, his visor came off as well.

I quickly absorbed what I saw, and I'm going to have to go all out. I bolted at him full speed, which is roughly fifty miles per hour now, and threw a kick that has withstood squats at forty times gravity, and thus had the force that could easily dent steel, and aimed it directly at his stomach. It was a dead center kick, and I quickly floated off him a safe distance away.

He fell down on the ground in a lot of pain, but within a minute, he got up again, to say I was shocked an understatement. That kick has dented steel as thick as him! I decided to try again, except this time at a point that was more vulnerable, however, when I succeeded in punching his face, he grabbed my foot, and swung me around, and threw me, like a hammer throw, and chucked me through the roof, and I went flying. I quickly recovered about two hundred meters away before I hit the ground, and softly floated there for a second. Then touched down.

I saw Kitty and Kurt pull up in the X-van, with Storm behind the wheel. "What happened Derek," I was fighting the Blob with Wolverine and Cyclops, I'm about to back and," before I could finish, I saw a familiar laser blast launch the Blob high up into the sky, I saw him land in the dump several hundred meters away. The impact must've hurt because he couldn't manipulate gravity the way I could.

Kitty, Kurt, and Storm quickly drove down the road to the abandoned ironworks while I kept up with them by running. They were shocked because they never saw me exert this kind of speed before. I ran past them to see what was up. I saw Rogue walk out of the building, and she was helping Scott and Logan up. We all pulled up and saw Rogue putting on Cyclops visor so he could see again.

"I only took a short-term dose of your power. You should be back to normal soon." She told him, and he looked up

"You are like an angel, Kate." He said, I smirked, knowing the line from Henry V, I think everyone else was quite confused with what he said, but the purpose was there.

"My name's not Kate. And I'm no angel." She responded, and she turned away.

"But you helped us. Why?" Jean asked her, genuinely curious.

"I don't know. I just don't know." She started running off in the other direction, away from the X-men.

"Hey, wait!" Jean reached out to try and grab her shoulder, but Wolverine put his hand on hers instead.

"Easy, Red. Let her go." He told us in a serious voice.

"But she" Jean started, but Wolverine interrupted her,

"She ain't ready. Trust me on this." We gave each other a look and nodded, she had to be willing to come to the institute, and she wasn't ready just yet.

"Okay, so maybe she's part of the dark icky side. But I figure we, like, totally owe her now." Kitty told us, and we all looked at her and nodded,

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. Big time." Scott said, as he put his arm over Jean protectively, I hope she at least knows Scott has a huge crush on her. We all got our things together climbed into our designated vehicles and went back to the institute. Thank god it was a Friday.

We were all pretty tired, so we all crashed pretty early, I went to bed at ten, and woke up at eleven thirty, feeling revitalized. I finished my homework in an hour, so technically I am pulling an all nighter, and went down to the Kitchen to grab something to eat. Today, I decided to work on the quantum computer, which is getting pretty close to completion, I was maybe a month or two out. All I need is a patent and then I can sell the unit to Stark Industries under my false alias, and hopefully it will be commercially.

As I was down the hall in the kitchen I heard some rustling, I turned and looked into the room and I saw Kitty, in her nightgown drinking milk straight from the carton, and eating a plate of cookies. She sat down, and looked up, half biting into a cookie, and her eyes widened when she saw me.

"This is like, totally not what it looks like." I gave her a blank stare, and then I started laughing.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked her, still chuckling to myself about the image I saw earlier. I put some noodles in the microwave and started it. Once they were done, and sat down in the seat across from her.

"So are you normally up this late?" I ask Kitty, genuinely curious, although I noticed she was sweating a little bit, I figured she must have had a nightmare.

"Well, I kind of had a nightmare…" She said, and ate another cookie.

"What was it about?" She looked up at me and blushed,

"I would rather not say," she told me.

I shrugged my shoulders and shot her a smile, "Just remember if you need to talk to someone, I'm always here for you."

She smiled back at me, and then had a suspicious look in her eye, "Although, I haven't heard the reason for why you're up, and the reason you are having a late dinner." She responded,

"Well, if you must know," I looked around "I have a high metabolism, so that means I have to eat a LOT of food, all the time."

Kitty looked around in an exaggerated manner, "So what you're telling me, is that your stomach controls your sleep cycle?"

I looked at her, "Precisely!" It looked like she was a little suspicious of that answer, but let it slide. After a half an hour of talking, she told me goodnight and walked back up to her room. I was still eating, trying to put up the illusion I set up.

When she left, I got up, and headed down to the lab, to work on my quantum computer. I stayed down there until about midday, and then I headed upstairs to get some food and take a shower.

After I got out of the shower I saw Storm and Scott watching the world news, and I decided to join them. Turns out Reed Richards and his crew are heading to the space station in mid June.

'I might see them up there, since the Spaceship will be done by the middle of May, and testing the systems will take a month.'

I was already planning several experiments up in the craft when I was in space, and one of them involved the cosmic rays astronomers have observed passing through our solar system. It was supposed to arrive in mid June, just when Reed Richards was going up, so I was hoping to do some research up there as well, except in a slightly different location. I created special shielding as well, to stop the cosmic radiation from affecting the ships systems and myself.

When the news session was over, Scott headed to the garage to work on his other car, while I was talking with Ororo, apparently she is visiting her sisters family and her nephew. In the next few days, and she would also see her nephew in a state championship basketball game. Also, he has developed powers, so she was going to discuss that with her sister and nephew.

I then went down to the hangar to work on the ships radiation shield, which needs to be working perfectly, because if it doesn't work, I'm dead.

**Hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter. If you want to know something about the story, just message me or leave a review... I'm hoping I'll get the next chapter out by Wednesday. If you guys haven't noticed, there is going to be a slight overlap when it comes to the Marvel Universe. It's going to follow the X-men Evolution plotline, but it is going to deviate from it at later points. **


	5. Chapter 5

**I don't own X-men Evolution, Marvel Entertainment does, which is now part of Disney, so.. yeah. **

-Institute-

**-Kitty POV-**

Over the past week, I found that Derek has been acting strange, ever since that night where I ate with him, and enjoyed our conversation. He only appears when he needs food, and when he goes to school. Other than that, I've hardly seen him over the past week. All the students at the institute were concerned about him; we've never seen him like this before. Even Scott, who has known Derek for nearly five years, found his behavior strange. I was concerned, as the boy, well, man I have to come to admire over the past month and a half has completely changed his behavior.

Okay, big deal, I have a crush on Derek, like, who doesn't have a crush on him? He is extremely intelligent, caring, strong, nice, loyal, and those eyes and abs… Back on topic, I was concerned for him, and there were only two people who had any idea about what was going on with him.

Even when Evan arrived at the Institute yesterday with Ororo, Derek only introduced himself and then walked off somewhere. It took a lot of convincing to Evan that he was not normally like this, even Storm was concerned at his behavior, as she helped raise him. She told us that she has seen him act like this once before, and then he snapped out of it in two weeks. However, he was closest to Logan, as they were best friends, nearly like brothers in a sense, if anyone would know what is up with Derek, it would be him.

We were all sitting down for dinner, Derek came in, grabbed a huge portion and left, he walked briskly out of the dining room, and left to go somewhere in the mansion. It was a Friday night, not just a normal Friday night; it is movie night for the students at Xavier's Institute! See we have this movie night at least once a month, and it's all prearranged on our calendars. Tonight we were going to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but how much fun would it really be if Derek was not there with us.

Only the Professor and Logan knew where he disappears, and everyone is dying to know where he goes. Whenever we ask the Professor, he says cryptically, "He is working on something at the moment." Tonight the Professor wasn't with us for dinner; he was probably in his study or working with Cerebro at the moment.

We asked Logan, he smirks, and says "The last time he did something like this, he came out with something big, and when I say big, I mean he made his first patent when he was behaving like this."

Jean, Kurt, Scott, Ororo, even Evan and I looked at each other, shocked.

'What does he mean by patent?'

"Wait, Mr. Logan, did you just say patent?" I asked, I looked around and a curious expression adorned all of our faces.

Mr. Logan looked up from his plate, and his eyes got real big. I've never seen that expression on him before, I guess he told us something that we didn't need to know.

"Aw Crap, I just said that out loud." He said, and then mumbled, "He is going to kill me for this."

We were silent for a minute, and then the Professor wheeled in for dinner. "Hello everyone, sorry for my brief absence, I lost track of time when I was reading a new paper on…" He looked around and noticed how silent everyone is he smiled a little bit. "I may be a telepath, but I don't need that to see that something is wrong at the moment." He said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Professor, Logan was telling us that Derek has patents, what does he mean by that? What did he invent?" Scott asked the Professor, genuine curiosity in his eyes, but at the same time, he was tensed up. I could tell that he was slightly mad at Derek for not telling him this a long time ago.

The Professor quickly shot a glance toward Wolverine, and sighed. "Very well, the secret is out now, so I'll answer any questions you have about this at the moment. I'll tell you only what I know, and some things I can't tell you because Derek wants to keep it private."

We quickly glanced at Logan and the Professor, a mutual understanding coming between them, about what they could tell and what they couldn't tell.

"What was Derek's first patent?" Asked Jean, a curious gleam in her eye.

"Well, his first patent was a processor for a computer that doubled the computing powers of computer that were out at the time. So that was when you all were roughly, twelve years old. Unfortunately, that processor is obsolete now due to the newest processors on the market." We all looked at each other, and realized that there was a computing revolution when we were younger, and one of the main contributors was Derek.

"How smart is he really?" Scott asked, and we all looked at Logan curiously, since he was laughing his ass off,

"Bub, its really a matter of what he doesn't know anymore." Logan told us, chuckling.

"Logan is right Scott, last time I asked, which was a month ago, he has the knowledge to obtain six or seven doctorates in science and engineering. I think he is studying to get even more." Since I knew he was already a genius, this information didn't faze me, but the looks on everyone else's faces were priceless.

"Well, that explains why I can't get a higher score than him on a test…" I heard Jean mumble.

"Why is he so smart Professor? Does it come naturally to him? Or does he…" Kurt trailed off.

"Have powers?" Professor Xavier finished, looking at Kurt, "Yes, that is a part of his mutation. His mind is enhanced, and accelerated, meaning it can process and calculate information much faster than a normal human mind." Now that was something I didn't know.

"Teach," The professor turned towards Evan, "how much money does he earn off of all his patents?" Evan asked, slightly curious.

"Well, that is a tricky question, because he gives fifty percent of the money to the institute, and keeps the rest for himself to use in a personal matter."

"Well, if you look at his garage, that's just a taste of the amount of money he has." Logan grumbled quietly, but I overheard him.

'If he has several classic cars that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Derek must be extremely rich!'

"What other patents does he have on the market at the moment?" I decided to ask, as I didn't know what Derek was working on at the moment, or what other patents he has.

"Well, that is another tricky question," the Professor answered "All I know is that he gives half of his revenue to the institute in order to help fund support for mutants. If you want to find out which patents he had, I would ask him." I grumbled a little bit at that, I knew he was super intelligent, but I didn't know he was actually smart enough to patent anything. Or how he could since he was underage…

I then broke the silence again, "Professor, how did he get his alias to patent all of his inventions? Because you can't patent anything as a minor."

Mr. Logan started laughing so hard; he nearly fell out of his chair. "Squirt, that was one of the funniest stories I have been a part of in my life, but unfortunately, that's a story for Derek to tell."

The Professor came up with a better answer. "I know he goes under the name of James Black," I saw Jeans head swivel toward the Professor, her eyes widened considerably, "when he is writing his research papers and submitting his patents."

'Where have I heard that name before?!'

"I recognize the name, but I'm not sure where I've heard it. Isn't it the name of a scientist?" Ororo said, a contemplative expression.

"Jean, why are you looking at the Professor like that?" I heard Scott ask her, as he also noticed her expression when the name James Black came up.

"At the end of our journalism class last semester, we were assigned a project about inventors and scientists of the modern era. The teacher gave us a name and we had to research it. Several names like Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, and Henry Pym came up, but I was assigned James Black. I tried to look up information about James Black, but not much is known about him. I decided to ask Derek to help me find information, he laughed when I asked him, and then he got serious and gave me several links to follow to find James Black's research. His papers were well received in the fields of physics, computer science, chemistry, mechanical engineering, and computer engineering. He is considered the leading authority in several fields of physics and computer engineering including quantum mechanics, quantum computing, cryptography, astrophysics, and gravity…" We all face palmed, especially Jean, and the Professor and Logan laughed.

'I'm learning programming from the leading authority on cryptography! Wow! This is like, amazing!'

Jean wasn't done though. "He also wrote papers for nuclear physics, but Bruce Banner is considered the leading authority in that field. Reed Richards is known as the world's smartest man, as he has had revolutionary papers in physics, biology, chemistry, and physiology, but a lot of people compare James to Reed."

I couldn't believe it, 'The guy I have a huge crush on is one of the smartest men on the planet, and also one of the hottest…' I blushed at that thought, and continued listening to the conversation.

"So Professor, now that we know what Derek is up to, can you take him to us now?" Kurt asked, and the Professor smiled.

"Once we're all done with dinner we'll go to his laboratory and see what he is working on at the moment." He said.

Half an hour later, we were all in the elevator to the bottom levels. I knew five of the rooms down there, however there were at least five other doors I haven't even seen the inside of yet.

The Professor took us to a door past the medical bay, and he typed in a combination into a pad in the door, a feminine voice from the above the door said _"Good Evening Charles."_ And it slid open.

We all looked in and what we saw amazed us. It was a room that was roughly the size of the hangar right next door. There was a big aircraft being built, and it looked very sleek, I overheard Scott give a whistle in appreciation. We saw that the giant room had a couch, a stove, and a bathroom. In that area, there was a huge bookshelf with books lining it all the way up to the ceiling.

'I guess that is why we haven't seen Derek that often over the past week.' I thought to myself.

To the left of that, we saw Derek in a lab coat, writing equations on a giant television screen, which also looked like a touch pad. He was writing equations really quickly and you could tell the screen was programmed to keep up with him. While he was doing this he was drinking some tea. We looked around and saw some other unfinished inventions, and the sheer amount flabbergasted us.

I looked at Evan and Kurt, who were about to touch something.

"I wouldn't touch anything if I were you two, you don't know what most of these machines are capable of." Kurt and Evan quickly retracted their hands from the machine they were about to touch.

I saw Derek turn around, and walked toward us, a slight smile on his face. "Hey guys, so what's up?"

We all looked at him, slightly disbelieving, and then Jean walked up to him and slapped him across the face.

"How could you not tell us you were James Black?!" She screamed, "We were all so worried about you! And how could you not tell us about your mental powers!"

To my surprise, he chuckled. "To be honest I was surprised you guys didn't figure it out sooner. Jean, you've read my research, and you haven't been able to read my mind. By the way, Evan," He looked at Derek, a look of curiosity on his face. "I own Black Multinational Patents, which is a sub company of Stark International, So if you look at the revenue for that company, you'll find out how much I earn." We all looked at him shocked, until he and the Professor grinned at each other. I put two and two together quickly,

"You heard our whole conversation didn't you?" He looked at me and smiled, and he blushed a little bit and kind of looked guilty.

"Yes, I heard everything, as soon as the Professor wheeled in, he put the whole conversation on speaker." He told us. "Well, how about you guys all take a seat and you can finish asking some questions."

We all sat down on his surprisingly comfortable sofas. "E.L.E.N, could you please save my work and run some simulations?"

We all looked around, wondering whom he was talking to, and then we heard a voice, it sounded like a giggle, followed by, _"Will that be all Derek?"_

"Yes, thank you E.L.E.N," said Derek,

"So Derek, who is E.L.E.N?" Jean asked, an eyebrow cocked, slightly smirking.

"_Hey, I'm right here you know!" _Everyone looked around, shocked that the computer was talking back to us. _"And my name is an anagram for the Experimental Living Electronic Network. I'm glad you all finally found your way down here! At least I have some new people to talk to now!" _the voice said, and she then cut herself off.

"Jean, she is my Artificial Intelligence that helps me out in the lab, but since you guys know about her now, she can, spread out a little more in the lower levels." He smirked at us, and then I decided to ask a question.

"Derek, when did you invent E.L.E.N?" I was genuinely curious, there are rumors about only two other artificial intelligences in the world right now, and now, since E.L.E.N is here, one confirmed and two rumors, which are probably true, because if Derek could get an A.I. up and running, there are certainly others smart enough as well.

"It was roughly about a year ago, E.L.E.N took roughly a year to program, and it was quite hard to get some of the algorithms right, because you're essentially programming a mind that acts like a human, and, in some cases, feels like a human." He told us, and that would make sense, my programming courses were coming along nicely at the moment, but this is years ahead of my capabilities. But I could hardly understand how to create a program that sophisticated, yet.

Scott then asked another question. "Derek, you never told us how you arrived at the institute, I know your family passed away, but how did you end up here."

Derek suddenly got a very serious look on his face; he had a gaze of steel at the moment, aiming toward the wall. I heard Logan growl a little bit in the background at the same time, and even the Professor looked slightly angry.

'Like, what could've made the Professor this angry? I've never seen him angry at anything before.' I thought to myself, and by judging the expression on his face, it must have been something unforgivable.

Derek turned toward Scott, the serious expression still on his face; it looks like this is the one topic he doesn't want to talk about. "Scott, I will tell you the story of how I got here, but I'm only going to tell it once, and I will not go into details. Also, you must not tell this story to anyone else, please."

He had a slightly pleading look in his eyes, and Scott of course said, "We will never tell another soul."

Derek took a deep breath, "Right, see, when I was around eight, my parents died in a car crash, they were both quite brilliant engineers. When they passed, I was placed in the care of my aunt, who was an alcoholic and made it quite clear that she didn't want anything to do with me. So I did the only logical thing I could think of, I ran away. For two years I travelled from city to city, struggling to survive. I would actually hack onto computer systems and steal money for a living." He paused for a minute, a hollowed look entered his eyes, I felt tears come to my eyes slightly, and I saw Jean in the same situation, tears threatening to burst. The guys looked really serious, and sullen, I don't think any of us realized how hard Derek's life was before he got here, until now. "Unfortunately, an organization at a facility found out about my, abnormal mind, since they were tracking me, and decided to abduct me. They took me to the facility, and for an entire year, I was experimented upon in every way you could imagine. They wanted to know how I ticked, no matter what the cost." I felt tears inch down the sides of my face; I ran up to Derek and gave him a hug, crying silently while I laid my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Scott had his arm around Jean, who was also crying, and was comforting her.

'How could people be so cruel as to experiment on a child?!' While thinking, I realized that there was an entirely new reason for the X-men, to prevent something like this from happening again.

Derek continued his story while giving me a hug, "One day, I planned an escape, and that was also the day I discovered my powers over gravity. Once, I escaped the facility, I attempted to flee using my newly discovered powers, but ran into some, complications. The Professor then detected me over Cerebro, and you could say the rest is history. But its all in the past now, and I don't intend for anyone to live like that ever again."

We were all silent for a couple more minutes, and then E.L.E.N told us that is was currently midnight. I detached from Derek, blushing from the contact earlier, and the Professor said, "Right everyone, it's a school night so it would be best if everyone went off to bed."

Before everyone walked out, "Guys," We all turned toward him, "I'm sorry for the way I was behaving this week, it's just I came up with an idea, and I am striving to finish it right now, but I'll stop acting like I have been this week."

We all went to bed, thinking about the revelations that were thrown in our faces today.

'Well, today wasn't boring, that is for sure.' As my eyes started drooping, and I fell asleep, thinking about a certain green-eyed mutant.

**-Derek POV-**

After I falling asleep like everyone else, I got up an hour and a half later, and immediately went down to the lab.

'Well, that was an interesting conversation. Luckily they never asked me about the spaceship. They would have my head if they knew what I was going to do.' I thought to myself. I have come to care for everyone at the institute immensely, but I needed to take this risk, and help mankind on its journey.

I went back down to the lab and started working on my idea that I came up with last week. It just hit me, and if it works, it would make fossil fuels and nuclear energy obsolete. However, it is not going to be complete by the time I launch my ship. It is probably going to take me a long time to gather materials and work out some problems with the hardware.

So I decided to work on the ship while E.L.E.N was working on the simulations. I checked my watch, and saw it was 7am. Looks like its time for me to get ready for school. I screwed up last week with Evan, so I decided to make it up to him on the way to school.

I walked into the kitchen and saw everyone eating breakfast; I sat down next to everyone and said "Good Morning!" I smiled a little when they all looked happy that I was back to my normal self.

"Hey Evan," he looked over to me, a curious look on his face. "I'm sorry I was such a jerk last week, and I'm sorry if I didn't make you feel welcome. So if you want, I'm taking the Lamborghini to school today, I want to know you a little better."

"You seriously mean it Derek! Sweet!" He looked excited, if he was anything like Kurt or Scott, he will seriously enjoy riding in this car.

We talked on the way to school, and it turns out trained extremely hard to get revenge on a mutant friend named Pietro, well former friend. Turns out he framed Evan and got him into major trouble when Evan tried to catch him. But Evan succeeded in the end; Pietro was caught using a tape recorder. Classic.

Now, he was in the school as well, no doubt due to Principal Darkholme and Magneto. We pulled up in school, and the day continued as normal, the brotherhood avoided us, we all went to class, had lunch together. And then went home for some rigorous training. Over the course of the week, nothing really changed, although Duncan Matthews told the juniors and seniors that there would be a party at his house on Friday. I knew he wouldn't want Scott or I to go, but it's funny because if he told everyone that we couldn't come, Jean would have a fit, and two, a lot of girls would get mad at him. It amused Scott and I to know end.

It was a Friday, and we were all discussing what we were going to do this weekend, and what the plan was for tonight.

"Go to Duncan Matthews' party? Um, I don't think so." Said Scott, as he hated the guy, I think its partially because he is a huge jerk and he is dating Jean mostly the latter, in my opinion.

"Come on. It might be fun." I heard Jean say, she was trying to convince us to come so we could all relax.

"Come on Scott! Think of the possibilities, the dancing, the games," and then I give him an obnoxious wink, and say in a loud whisper, "The girls…" and then give a wink to Kitty, then giggles behind her hand a little bit. I think she loved the fact that I was messing with Scott's head a little.

"Matthews is a jerk." I heard him mumble, and to be honest, I agree with him.

"No he's not. I'd go." Said Kitty

"No sophomores allowed." I heard Scott tell her

"Oh, Matthews is a jerk." I smirked a little to that.

While everyone else was talking I whispered to Kitty, "You know if I drive up in one of my cars, they won't care you're a sophomore, right?"

She then whispered, "Cool! I'll, like, take you up on that offer!" I smiled a little bit.

"Half of the school will be there. Suppose somebody gets too close to Kurt? That holo-projector won't stop them from feeling his fur." Scott told us, and he had a certain point, but we had to loosen up sometime.

"Hey!" Kurt answered in mock offense, his hand over his heart. "Chicks dig the fuzzy dude! Right?" I saw him waggle his eyebrows at Kitty, who rolled her eyes.

"I am, like, so out of here. Later! By the way Derek, you owe me that ride." and she walked away, probably to go talk to her other friends.

"Oh, yeah. She can't resist the fuzzy dude." He told us, and I laughed a little, and put my hand on his shoulder, and I adopted a serious expression.

"Kurt," He looked at my serious face, and instantly shut up. "No one can resist the fuzzy dude!" I told him in a mock seriousness voice. And everyone but Scott laughed at that.

"I'm trying to be serious here." He told us, everyone looked at him with an are-you-kidding-me look, "Look, we go to Matthews' party. Suppose Dukes or Maximoff try to start something? We're not the only mutants in the school."

"Yeah, just the cool ones." I heard Evan say, and he then preceded to hi-five Kurt, and I hi-fived him as well, that was a good burn.

"Hey, come on, Scott. What's wrong with a little socializing?" I heard Evan say, he did have a point; everyone needs human interaction at some point.

"I'm sorry, but I just don't think it's a good idea." He told us, so I decided to step in, but not before Kurt, unfortunately.

"Dude, it's just a party! Time to shake that tail! Party! Party! Party!" I heard Kurt yell, as he got up on the table and danced. But I saw his tail come out and shake as well. I noticed people looking at us, luckily no one noticed the tail.

Regrettably, Scott pulled Kurt down by his tail, "Hey, watch the tail!" I heard Kurt say angrily.

"Now see? That's exactly what I'm talking about!" I heard Scott argue yet again, I was kind of getting annoyed at this point, but Kurt did not drop the issue.

"You pulled my tail, man!" He said, still glaring at Scott.

"Grow up, Kurt."

At this point, Jean, Evan and I were watching this like a tennis match; our heads kept going from side to side.

'I hope this does not go on for a while.'

"Hey, lighten up, dude!"

"You're always goofing around."

"And you're seriously cramping my style!"

"Listen!"

"No! You listen! There's a sound I want you to hear. And it's" Kurt teleported away in a discreet fashion, enough to get several looks from around the courtyard when Scott was waving his hands.

Scott looked down, with a slightly regretful expression, "I blew it, didn't I?" He asked rhetorically, but Jean answered him.

"Oh, yeah." She answered.

"Totally." Evan added.

'Now to find where Kurt teleported off to.' I thought, determined to help Scott find Kurt and fix this mess.

-Basement of School-

**-Kurt POV-**

I was pissed with Scott at the moment, why in the hell would he grab my tail like that? He knows that it's sensitive!

I teleported out of there because I just wanted to get away from him. But, I teleported a little off the ground and couldn't correct myself in time.

"I have got to work on my re-entries." I said out loud rubbing my head.

I looked down at my hands, and noticed that my three fingers were there instead of my holographic ones, I noticed it flickered several times.

"Oh, weak, man." I said to myself, thinking that I'm going to have to go back to the institute and get it repaired.

"Who's there?!" I heard from behind me, I freaked out, since no one can see me like this and it didn't sound like anyone I knew well.

I teleported through a door that was unmarked, and walked through, there were a bunch of controls and keyboards all over the place, it looked like a retro version of Derek's lab. "Man, somebody should fire the custodian."

I walked through, looking at the machines, and then I looked up, and a screen popped up, with a teenager with a very tan face, and he looked slightly Native American, and he was dressed up from the 70s, considering he has a flowery shirt on.

"January 22, 1978. Hi there. If you're hearing this, you've got 10 seconds before this lab self-destructs. Have a nice day, or what's left of it." He said, and then the screen went on countdown.

"I should have paid attention in computer lab! Or at least brought Derek with me!" I looked at the countdown, 3, 2, 1, and

"BOOM!"

I went flying out into the room that I was in before, and fell into a huge pile of empty cardboard boxes, thank goodness that it stopped me from hitting the wall.

"Hey! Hey! Are you okay? What happened?" I saw Rogue kneel down next to me, and I was still lying down. I knew three words were enough to explain the situation I was in.

"Lab. Booby-trapped." And then I sighed and laid my head back down, hoping I could just go home and relax after this.

"Lab?" She asked, and she started walking around, looking at all of the stuff that blew up. "Whatever this stuff was, it's thrashed now. Except for this." She picked up a machine that had a half spherical center, and had handles on it, and one of those handles had a trigger.

"What are you doing here?" I decided to ask, being as polite as possible.

"Look who's talking! At least I didn't blow the place up." She said, and that got me slightly aggravated. I grabbed a hold of the machine, trying to pry it out of her grasp.

"Hey, let go of that!" I yelled, I didn't know what this machine could do, but if it was anything like the lab that just blew up, it could cause problems.

"Back off, blue boy!" She yelled, "Who says you're in charge here?" and she clicked the trigger, and then everything in my vision went black.

I woke up on the floor, "What happened?" I mumbled, rubbing the back of my head. I looked around, it looked like everything was waving around, and everything was distorted.

"Where am I? The Twilight Zone?" I said, chuckling to myself, and then I realized that I was in the hallway.

I looked around and saw a ghost-like Kitty and Evan "Man, Scott's gotta lighten up." I heard her tell him.

"Yeah, but Kurt's gotta, like, know when to quit." I heard Evan say, and then they both laughed and walked down the hall.

"Kitty?" No answer, "Kitty!" I reached for her shoulder, but unfortunately, my hand phased completely through her. "No! Wait! No! What's happening to me?" I asked to no one.

**-Derek POV-**

"So you think I should apologize to Kurt?" Scott asked Jean and I, who were walking to Biology together.

"Well, what matters is what you think." Jean told him,

"You gotta admit he jerks around way too much." Scott said, a little unsure about this argument at this point.

"But you can be a little to serious at times as well." I mumbled to myself. Scott quickly looked at me, and I started to whistle a little bit. Jean decided to cover me,

"So is that worth losing a friend over?" She asked rhetorically. We continued walking to class in silence, and then two freshmen ran by, it looked like they came out of the bathroom.

"A ghost! We just saw a ghost!" One yelled, and ran down the hall.

"Yeah! A blue and hairy demon!" The other one yelled, they were probably terrified and tore down the hall.

"I'm out of here!" They yelled.

"I warned him! Scott said, and he walked into the boys bathroom, and looked around.

"Kurt?"

"Not there?" Jean asked us, and we both responded, "No."

"You'd better contact him. Tell him to knock it off." Scott told Jean, and she put her fingers to her temples and used her telepathy to find Kurt.

"Scott, I can't pick up a trace of Kurt anywhere. It's like he doesn't exist." She told us, and Scott and I looked at her, curiosity etched on our faces.

"Try again. He's gotta be somewhere." Scott told her, and I nodded in agreement, but I was getting slightly suspicious at this point.

"I am. I'm not getting anything. He's just completely gone." She told us, and we looked around, unsure of what to do. My mind was right now running at a hundred miles per hour.

'What mess did Kurt get into this time? If it looked like a ghost he might be out of phase with this dimension, meaning I would have to additional scans and see what the data told us.'

"Or somebody did something to him." Scott said, and I looked up, and saw Fred and Lance come toward us. Scott was glaring at them, and they noticed.

"What are you looking at, Summers?" Said Lance, glaring back at Scott, probably wondering what was going on.

"Where's Kurt?" He asked, and he got into a fighting stance,

"Yeah, like we'd tell you!" Lance said, his hands getting ready to shake the Earth, and I was standing behind Jean, watching the whole ordeal. He then grabbed Lance and threw him against a locker.

"Scott, no!" Jean yelled, and

I said out loud, "This isn't a good idea Scott."

"Hey!" Lance growled out, probably not appreciating the fact he was shoved into a locker.

"I said, where is he?" Scott growled out, and people started to gather around us, probably hoping that a fight will break out any minute now.

"Get off of me!" Lance snarled.

"What have you done with Kurt?" Scott asked again, in a sinister voice.

"Get lost, slim!" Fred yelled, and picked him up by the collar. At this point, I got into a kuda kuda depan stance, which means my forward foot takes slightly more weight, and both my hands are flattened, and are put at different angles, making me look kind of intimidating, or like a dork, since people don't know I have the knowledge of lots of martial arts.

"Put him down!" I heard Jean yell, and I was beside her, in my stance, ready to spring in if necessary.

"Back off, Red, or I'll rock you!" Lance said, his palms facing the floors threateningly.

Jean hair started flying up, and I looked around, and noticed everyone was chanting.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" We were all tensed up; you could cut the air with a knife.

"What is going on here?" We heard someone shout, and the crowd quickly dispersed.

"We weren't doing nothing." Fred told Principal Darkholme.

"Yeah! Summers here just went ballistic on us for no reason!" Lance added, he knew that Principal Darkholme would protect them, since she originally invited them to the school.

"Oh, I've got a reason." Scott growled as Fred lowered him down.

"Scott! Quiet!" I heard Jean whisper to him.

"You three in my office now." She looked at Scott, Jean and I, and we relented. However while she was walking, I stepped ahead to talk to her. I looked back and saw they were ten paces behind; if I talked to Principal Darkholme they wouldn't hear me.

I walked up to her and started matching her pace, "Mystique," she turned quickly, and had an absolute shocked look on her face. "Kurt really has gone missing, we don't know why. Once you scold us, let us go, because I have a feeling something pretty bad happened to him."

She looked at me, and I saw that she had a slight look of regret in her eyes. "How could you have possibly known that Mr. Goddart?"

"Lets just say, I know about the little insect problem you've had in your office recently." I said casually, as if discussing the weather. She shook off her shock, and whispered, "Just find Kurt, okay?" It sounded a little like pleading, and worry? I would have to look into this later. I nodded, knowing that I would do my upmost for my friend.

We arrived at her office,

"Okay. Inside, the three of you. I don't care what influence Xavier has with the school board. I am going to get you…" I looked around and noticed that there was no furniture in her office anymore.

'Where the hell is her furniture?'

"What?! What happened here? Who took my furniture?" Principal Darkholme yelled, and she walked out of her room, going to her secretary.

Jean and Scott were looking out the window, and I decided to see what was going on. I saw Toad, in his full uniform using a machine that made a car completely disappear, or transport somewhere… I figured this due to the law of conservation of mass; it cannot be created or destroyed, but possibly changed… My mind started narrowing down the possibilities I came up with earlier.

"Bet I know what happened to Kurt." Scott said, and we nodded. It was quite obvious what happened now.

We turned around, "Guys, look! It's Kurt!" Jean said, pointing at an apparition that looked like Kurt in a transparent state. He then fell through the wall.

"Or his ghost." Scott said, but Jean and I beat him to the punch at the same time.

"No." We both said, and I gestured Jean to go first.

"I got a brief mental reading. It's like he's trapped somewhere." Jean told us, she then looked at me, wanting an explanation.

"Well, unfortunately the study of extra-dimensions isn't my strongest point…." Jean and Scott looked at me incredulously, "Anyways, I believe that Kurt was transported to a state of flux in a dimensional field that was accidently created in the school. What Toad was holding, is a trans-dimensional projector? Like I said, not my strong point, but if I'm right, Kurt is going to need a device to get him back, since the actual projector won't do it. I'm going to go to the institute and gather some things we may need. When you guys get the machine, don't do anything until I get there." I told them.

"While you do that, I think the X-men better have a talk with the Toad." Scott told Jean and I, and we nodded, splitting into different directions.

**-Kurt POV-**

I was walking around, for some reason there was stuff falling from the ceiling at random intervals. I was trying to dodge it, and explore this expanse. I looked down and saw a teenager in a flowery shirt and Bermuda shorts. He looked surprised that I was here. "Whoa! Where'd you come from?" He asked me, a surprised look,

'I guess he doesn't know what to do with my appearance…'I thought, looks like I'm going to have to go for the classical approach.

"Relax." I told him, putting my arms up in a calming gesture.

"What are you, man?" He asked me; he looked like he was freaked out a little bit.

I laughed a little bit, "Don't let my looks fool you. I'm a harmless blue fuzz ball." I told him, and that seemed to calm him down a lot.

"Really?" He asked, but he looked much calmer, a slight smirk on his face.

I got lowered myself onto the floor, and I got a closer look at his face. "Hey, I know you. You're the one I saw on the computer screen just before it blew." I yelled, pointing slightly.

"Yeah. The name's Forge. You found my lab, huh? What's with the Halloween getup?" he asked.

"No costume. I'm human. But I'm a mutant. I know I look strange, but -" I teleported across the gym and back, "There are some fringe benefits." I smirked slightly.

"Trippy! I thought I was the only one." And his hand turned into a complex metallic appendage with lots of different tools. I looked at him shocked, I couldn't believe there were mutants nearly three decades ago. We started talking about my powers and he gathered some supplies and started building a device. His arm had a built in welder, so there were some flashes of light when he was working.

Even more items started raining from the ceiling, and we tried to work around it. "Man! Somebody's really giving that gizmo of yours a workout."

"That gizmo is a trans-dimensional projector. My science fair project back in '78." He told me, and proceeded to work on the device. I had no idea what it was, but if Derek were here, he would probably be able to explain it backwards and forwards. "And when I fired it up it created this pocket dimension that I call Middleverse." He informed me, and it was quite shocking, "I got caught in the ray myself and I've been here ever since."

'How has he lived for nearly forty years?' I thought, shocked that someone could live in this dimension, with these conditions.

"1978? But you still look…" I started, but I couldn't finish. I heard Forge chuckle slightly after that.

"Like I did then? I know. I can't explain it. They shut down and locked my lab after the accident. Everyone was totally freaked when I disappeared." If a student randomly disappeared, I would be kind of freaked as well.

"So there's no way back?" I asked, wanting to get out of this place, not stuck here for forty years.

"Not without help from the other side." He answered, still working on a device that he hasn't told me what it does yet. I thought about it, and I knew Derek might be able to help us out, if he were here.

"And I'm thinking that you may be able to help out on that." He told me, as he was working on the device, "And, man, I'm telling you, I'm ready to go home." He said and I don't blame him.

I looked over and saw two cute girls in PE uniforms come our way; they looked like ghosts and were walking toward the locker room.

"So are you going to Duncan's party tonight?" She asked the other girl.

I straightened my hair, and tried to act cool, but they just phased straight through me at the moment.

"Yeah, hopefully there will be some cute guys there, like Derek, Scott, and that new exchange student, was it Kurt?"

"Totally! He's pretty funny!"

As they were walking away, I smiled a little bit, excited that chicks actually dig the fuzzy dude! I decided to ask him, "So just how far does this Middleverse extend?"

He laughed quietly, "Stops just short of the girls' locker room. Isn't that a burn?" I probably had a downcast look on my face.

"Done!" I heard Forge yell, and I looked at his device, it looked like a vest that you put on someone, but what could it do?

"What is it?" I ask, clueless to what the device was.

"This little baby will alter the phase-shift frequency of your teleport power." He told me, and I had no idea what that is, so I decide to blame my 'language problem.'

"My English is a little limited." I said, and for emphasis I held out two fingers and put them quite close together.

"You can teleport back to the real world." He told me, and now it made complete sense.

"All right!" I yelled, jumping in joy, I wanted to get out of this Middleverse just as much as Forge.

"But only for a sec." He said, and I knew that I would have to make that second count. "These batteries don't have much power. Still, with luck, you can tell somebody how to reset the projector to get us back." He told me, looking very hopeful, and then I mumbled,

"Oh, I just hope they don't think I'm joking." He looked at me shocked, I rubbed the back of my head, "I kind of have that rep." I told him.

**-Scott POV-**

"Get lost!" Toad yelled at us, and he looked kind of frightened at the same time. "I'm warning you!" He yelled, and he was currently in a tree, and was holding the device at us.

I looked over and Jean used her telekinesis to get the device. "Got it!" She yelled, as Toad fell out of the tree.

He shook his head, and said "That's it! I'm out of here!" However, our newest recruit stopped him by sticking his costume to a tree with a spike.

"Why don't you stick around for a while?" He asked, and he probably wished Kurt was there so he could give him a high five.

"Now, tell us what you did to Kurt." I asked, putting on my most threatening voice, I wanted to know what happened to my friend.

"I didn't do anything!" He yelled out, his hands covering his face, waiting for us ton inflict pain on him. We would never do this in the first place though.

"He didn't. I did." A voice said, we all turned around and saw Rogue, "If you all want to find blue boy, you better let him go." Since we wanted Kurt back, we obliged, and Toad hopped off to where he goes.

We all followed her, and we got a phone call from Derek, telling us that he is on his way with something that will help Kurt. He told us to not touch anything on the machine, or else it could cause problems.

"This is where it happened." She said, pointing to the spot in the basement.

"If you've hurt him, I'm gonna…" I threatened her, since Kurt is my friend, I don't want anything to happen to him at all.

She narrowed her eyes at me, "You start threatening me and you're never gonna find your friend." She said, a voice with a dangerous calmness to it.

"Whoa, take it easy, Cyclops." Evan said, and grabbed me and pulled me back.

"Yeah." Said Shadowcat, coming in front of me.

"Just like I'm always telling you." I heard a familiar voice, and saw Derek walk through the doors with his uniform on, and in his hands it looked like he was carrying a weighted vest.

"Okay guys, I came up with a plan, and here it is!" he said as he held up the vest, it even had a little sticky not on it.

Evan and Derek walked over to the device, "Can you believe it? It uses CP/M! I mean, talk about retro, man." He said, and I saw Derek smile.

"It's hard to believe that your mp3 player can hold 15625 times the data that this device can hold." He said, and I saw Evan and Kitty's eyes widen.

Kitty walked up next to them. "It's putting out some kind of, like, steady low-power pulse wave that just seems to disappear into thin air." She said, looking at the projector from different angles.

Derek just smirked, "One second guys," and he laid the vest on the floor, grabbed the trans-dimensional projector, and fired the device at the projector, which disappeared into thin air.

"Derek, we want to get Kurt out! Not send more stuff in!" I told him, I was kind of getting annoyed that this was his big plan.

"Scott, calm down, that was a device that can phase-shift the frequency of Kurt's powers." He paused for a second. "Kurt, if you can hear me, which I think you can because you're not entirely out of phase with this dimension, I want you to put on the vest, and then simply teleport here. But first, I have to press the reset button on the machine. You got it?"

**-Kurt POV-**

When I heard Derek's instructions, I sighed gratefully, knowing that we were getting out of the Middleverse, thank god that he is a genius.

"Man, how in the hell did your friend know that all you had to do was change phase-shift frequency of your powers and know to press the reset button on my machine?" Asked Forge, who was quite shocked that someone understood his invention, and how computers could hold more than fifteen thousand times the memory they could back in the seventies.

I just shook my head and smiled, "That's Derek for you, and it looks like he used more power to get us back. No need to worry about power anymore!" as I said that I put my thumbs up.

Forge just shook his head, disbelieving that Derek could figure his invention out so quickly.

**-Derek POV-**

"Scott, Evan, if I weren't here would you have blown up the machine instead?" I smirked, and they looked down the floor, a little ashamed that I knew what they were planning.

"You know, I could've just, like, phased through the gizmo and, like, quietly shorted it out." Kitty added, looking at all of us, but we all gave her a blank look.

"But," and everyone looked at me "Combustion reactions are cool." Scott and Evan nodded in agreement, and I saw Kitty cross her arms over her chest and stand next to Jean.

I overheard her mumble "Like, what is it with guys and explosions anyway?" and I saw Jean smirk at that.

"There they are! And they still got that vape-ray I was telling you about." We watched as Toad walked in, with Fred and Lance, who were all geared up.

Lance turned toward Rogue, and said "Rogue, Mystique sent us to find you. So you with us or them?"

"Mystique? You working for her?" I heard Scott yell, he seriously needs to calm down at the moment.

"Hey, you got your friends, I got mine." She said, and she turned around and started walking out. "But this ain't my fight. I'm out of here."

"Fork it over, losers." I heard Lance yell, and he held his hand out. "Or this place is gonna rock." He threatened.

'I don't have time for this.' I thought to myself, so I just decided to give some instructions while I get Kurt out of the zone.

I was still holding the projector. I looked at Lance, "X-men please preoccupy them, Kurt should be out of the pocket dimension in the next minute."

Scott nodded, and everything broke out at that moment. I pushed the button and yelled "Kurt! Push the button on the vest and teleport out of there! Now!"

"Come on! Hit me with your best shot, slim!" Yelled the Blob, and Scott shot his concussive blast at him, but he didn't move.

"Takes more than that to stop the Blob!" and I noticed Scott then hit the floor, and then said, "Thanks for the tip! Jean!" and I saw that he fell into a hole in the ground created by Scott.

'Good thinking Scott!' I thought to myself, as I saw the portal opened, and

"You and me got a date, pretty Kitty." I looked behind me and saw Lance was going to destroy the entire building, and he was also threatening Kitty.

I narrowed my eyes, and raised my hand a little bit, and Lance was thrown into a wall, slightly groaning but getting up slowly.

I looked up and saw that the portal was there, along with, two people? I saw Nightcrawler jump out, and then I saw a teenager that looked like he came straight out of the 70s.

'Two people? I did not see that coming.'

I felt a light smack behind me, and saw that Toad attempted to slam me down to the ground and break the device. But it was ineffective, and he was sprawled out on the floor.

As soon as the Brotherhood saw that Nightcrawler was back, they all looked at each other and shrugged.

"Come on, guys. This party's over." Lance said, as he got up groaning, thinking that Jean was the one who slammed him into the wall.

We all then went outside, and Forge explained everything, and I 'translated' all the scientific jargon.

I thought it would be fun to have another extreme tech head around at the moment. But it didn't look like he was coming with us, after all, if I were stuck in a pocket dimension, I would want to travel, and find my old friends and family.

We were all standing by Scott's car and my motorcycle. We were discussing the possibility of Forge coming with us. But he had other plans.

"You're welcome to crash with us a while, Forge. Xavier's cool. You'd like him." Kurt said, and it turned out he broke his holo-watch, which means I'm going to have to get the spare so we can go to the part tonight.

"Thanks, but I better go find my parents. I'm 20 years late for curfew. Thanks for bailing me out." Forge said, I knew he wouldn't want to come with us. But I had a thought and I decided it would be a good idea.

"Hey, anytime. Hop in. We'll give you a lift." Scott said,

"No problem. It's just a few blocks." Forge replied, and I decided to step in for a second.

"Forge, can I talk to you for a second?" He looked at me funny,

"Sure, man" he replied and we walked several steps away. "Forge, I have a business proposition for you."

He gave me a quizzical look, so I decided to elaborate. "See, I have an alias where I can patent things I invent." His eyes widened at that, "So if you ever need an invention or something patented, just talk to me, and we can get you hooked up. Good way to earn extra cash for other experiments. And if it was your invention, I would make sure you get all the revenue." I told him.

"Sure, I'll think about it man." He said, and I then gave him my contact information so he could reach me if he needed anything. We shook hands, similar to a business handshake, and then walked back to the rest of the gang.

"While you were talking with Derek, I wrote down our contact information, if you need help, feel free to give us a call."

"Sure, I'll do that." He turned around and started walking away

"See you, dude!" Kurt yelled, and waved.

As he was walking away he waved at us.

'Hopefully he'll find what he needs at his parents house, if they're still there.' I thought to myself.

We all got into our designated vehicles, I got on my motorcycle, while everyone else piled into Scotts car.

"You're gonna have to duck until we can get you a new holo-watch." I heard Scott say, as he looked behind him. At Kurt, I knew this was the moment he was going to apologize."

"So it's true!" I heard Kurt say, and then I saw him put his hand on his head, in a dramatic mocking way, "You really are ashamed of me!" We all laughed at that.

"Right, dude. Hey, listen. About what happened before. My bad." Scott said, and I noticed that everyone else was smiling, happy that this little fiasco was over now.

"No. It was on me too.

"Maybe you're right." I saw him look down for a second "I take things too seriously. I need to lighten up some."

"Check his temperature." I yelled, and Kitty was sitting next to him so she put her hand on his forehead,

"Mr. Military's going soft!" She said, retracting her arm away from Scotts face. I sat on my motorcycle, a big smile on my face.

"Yeah. And I could probably dial down the goofing a little." Kurt said, and he rubbed the back of his head.

We all nodded our heads in agreement, "Okay. So now what do you say we head home, gear up and run a level-three training simulation in the Danger Room?" Scott asked, and everyone looked at him like he was crazy. I smirked knowing what was going to happen next.

"Scott! Make that a level-five simulation! I need a good work out tonight!" I said.

"Give us a break." I heard Evan say in the back seat. I noticed that Jean and Kitty were sitting there, a look of disbelief on their faces at the moment.

"Oh, man! See? That's what I'm talking about. Always serious." I heard Kurt grumble, he looked a little put out at the moment.

"Psych!" Scott said, he and I started laughing hard at the expressions of everyone else.

"You got us! Very nice. There's hope for you yet. And Derek, how did you know it was a prank?" Kurt asked curiously.

"Dude, I've lived with Scott nearly five years now, I know how his mind works," I said, and I smirked knowing it has been constantly effected by a certain red head.

"Kurt, tell me about it on the way to Duncan Matthews' party." Scott told him, and everyone eyes perked up a little bit, no one can resist a good party.

"Oh, I can't go, remember? I'm, like, a sophomore." Said Kitty, a little sad at the fact that she couldn't go to the party, or remember my offer from earlier today.

"Hey! You're also one of the X-Men." Said Jean, a gleam in her eye, Scott and I looked at each other and exchanged a grin.

"Don't worry. We'll make it happen."

"Kitty, remember my offer from earlier today?" I ask, and then her eyes light up again, knowing she can go to the party now.

"Scott! Race you to the mansion!" I yelled, and we both gunned it, racing to the mansion.

Once we got there, we all changed and headed out. I got the spare holo-watch for Kurt, and he was quite happy about going to this party for some reason. I got my Lamborghini and all of us drove in a convoy to the party.

Kitty had no problem getting in since she was with us.

We all had a lot of fun. We all danced, talked, and played games. It ended at about midnight, and we all drove back to the mansion, I think it was roughly midnight.

When I got back I noticed that Kitty fell asleep in the passenger seat on the way back. I smiled and picked her up bridal style. I walked into her room and placed her on the bed, and placed a blanket over her. Looking to see if no one was watching, I placed a kiss on her forehead.

I saw a smile come to her lips, and I then walked out. I had a lot to do.

Tonight, private training looks like I need to train in martial arts and condition myself. I have a gut feeling I'm going to need these new skills soon.

**Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter; the updates are going to start slowing down, due to University. **


	6. Chapter 6

**X-Men Evolution is a great show, which is owned by Marvel Entertainment, which is now owned by Disney. Here is the new chapter everyone, hope everyone enjoys!**

-Insitute-

**-Derek POV-**

The next morning was a blur, as everyone got up late after that night, and I was in my lab working on the spacecraft. I was close to finishing it, very close and once E.L.E.N completed the simulations and ran the tests, I was going to take it up and study the cosmic rays due to hit the atmosphere during the summer. I didn't want to tell anyone about this because it would worry everyone if I suddenly told them I built a homemade spacecraft and was going to study potentially harmful cosmic wave.

I was working on the quantum computer as well, that should be done in a couple of months as well. Potentially, it would have nearly two times the computing power than E.L.E.N but if I program her to utilize the systems, she'll probably be one of the most authoritative computer programs on the planet.

I went upstairs, and found that everyone was going outside in karate uniforms.

'I forgot that lesson was today! Well I better help Logan teach today, or else he'll kill me.' I thought, so I rushed to my room and put on my uniform, and a black belt, and rushed down stairs. There are three people who have the same rank, but I knew only one would spar with me, and that would be Logan.

I went outside to see that everyone was in stances, and all following Logan as a lead. I decided to watch since this was a rudimentary stance. When they finished the movements, Logan looked at me, and nodded, "Okay everyone partner up, and spar against one another. We'll mix it up later since all of you have different styles."

I bowed to Logan, and he bowed back, and we started to brawl. There was a quick exchange of arms and legs kicking and hitting each other. In the end, I caught Wolverines arm and flipped him, knocking him down to the ground. He grumbled a little bit and got back up. After an hour of sparring, we saw everyone else sitting down and watching us.

We stared them down until Evan decided to speak up. "Come on man! Why did you guys stop?"

"Because some people didn't listen to me and decide to watch instead of act! Looks like all of you can do some push ups." They all groaned. "Derek, will you do the honors." And I smirked a little, and applied two times Earths gravity to them.

They were all sweating by about twenty push ups, so I decided to stop using my powers at the moment.

Once the training was done, everyone had their own plans to prepare for. Jean and Scott had a geology field trip coming up, I think they were going to the mountains and they had to go out and buy some things. Kitty was meeting up with some friends of hers from school; apparently she was going to sleep over at a friend's house. Kurt was hanging out with Evan today, going to the skate park. So I decided to get some work done, and work on the aircraft and the quantum computer. I actually stayed in there all weekend. Literally the only reason I came upstairs was for food, but now that everyone knew where I was, they were fine about it. If they wanted to hang out I still obliged. On Monday morning, I wasn't feeling to good, but if it didn't effect my mutant powers, I would still go to school.

After seven hours of working, I left the lab to see what everyone was up to, and I discovered that they were in a training simulation.

Their goal was to take out the guards and rescue a hostage. I walked into the observatory and saw the Professor working with the machine. I saw Kitty take out Storm, and then Evan take out Logan. I smirked, knowing Logan wouldn't like that too much. I saw Jean on the roof of the facility, along with Kurt and Scott. Scott and Kurt teleported inside the structure to rescue the hostage, and Jean was holding them up with her telekinesis. I could tell she was struggling to hold them up, since her face became scrunched and she was starting to shake.

I overheard them talking about Kurt's burger problem, which I laughed at, because I eat a burger, everyday with him. At least she would never have to hold me up. I saw Scott stop the simulation when the victim was shown, and I could understand why, it is disconcerting to try and rescue a person who doesn't like you, yet. We were all keeping our hopes up, as the signs were there that she might want to leave the brotherhood soon.

I went down to talk to everyone about the simulation, and wish Scott and Jean luck on their field trip. Everyone left except for the Professor and Wolverine. As I was across the danger room I sneezed; it snuck up on me so I couldn't put my arm over my face. I was lucky I wasn't fast enough, when I looked at the floor, my eyes grew really wide, and I saw a crater with about a one-meter diameter in it, the exact place where I sneezed.

The Professor and Logan looked at me with wide-eyes. "How the hell did you do that Bub?" Logan asked me.

I looked up, slightly afraid. "Well, I wasn't feeling to well, but then… I sneezed. And… I guess, I'm developing a new part of my powers." I told them, and it slightly scared me. I just sneezed into a steel floor, and left an indention that was nearly two feet deep, I don't want to imagine if that was someone there in its place. I looked up at the Professor and Logan.

"Derek, I don't think it's a good idea for you to go to school today." The Professor told me, and I nodded.

'Not until I get these new powers under control. It would've been disastrous if something were to happen.' I thought.

"I completely agree with you Professor, and I probably won't be going anywhere until I get these powers under control, or near anyone for that matter…" I said, pondering how long it could take to find a semblance of control.

"Derek, that might be a good idea until you get control of this new ability." The Professor told me, and I nodded. Logan added a thought.

"Derek, you could probably isolate yourself in the lab, use that backroom in the lab when you feel an urge to sneeze coming on. You and I could also work on that spacecraft. I know you're near completing it." Logan said, smirking.

"Logan, I know you want to go on the maiden voyage with me soon, but I need to be the one to test it, I don't want to risk anyone's lives except my own if I made a mistake somewhere. " I told him seriously, I smiled a little bit though, "After it's a proven machine, you can join me."

Logan understood, and nodded his head. I knew he was not happy with me going up alone, but I told him that I had E.L.E.N, and she would watch out for me.

I finished talking with the Professor and Logan, and they let me know that they would let everyone else know what happened, and to stay away from me for a little while. We all agreed that I should at least socialize during my isolation, so I told them that I would put myself on a computer monitor installed in the dining room. I quickly parted with them, going to the kitchen.

I noticed everyone else has left for school, so I decided to I then levitated a lot of food using my powers down to my lab, since I didn't know how long it would take to control my powers. Luckily I had a futon and a full bathroom in the lab, and plenty of books. I then started going to work, my spaceship was nearly done, I just needed to install a way so E.L.E.N could get on board with me, and help me pilot the systems and everything. She was very excited about our upcoming journey, since she would be the first artificial intelligence in space.

While I was working that day, I got an intruder alert on my screen, it looked like Mystiques associate, Magnus, or called, Magneto. I suddenly had the urge to sneeze, so I quickly went to my back room, trying to figure out how to control my power. When I came back, I noticed the intruder alert was over, so I decided to call the Professor.

"_Hello Derek, anything troubling you?"_

"Charles, are you all right? E.L.E.N informed me about the intruder alert set off on the grounds."

"_I'm fine Derek, just a visit from an old friend." _I heard him sigh. _"Any new developments in your control?"_

I chuckled, "Unfortunately Professor, it looks like I'm going to be down here for a whil…" I ran into the room and sneezed three times in a row. I came back to the call.

I heard the Professor laughing on the line.

"While," I finished, "Just let me know when everyone else gets back and please keep me up to date with everything!"

"_Don't worry Derek, I will_." And I hung up.

I kept working on the spacecraft for several hours, and I got a call from Logan, "_Hey, Kid, there's trouble in the mountains, apparently Scott is having some troubles, we're taking the blackbird, and I need another good pilot, are you up for it?"_

"I don't think so Logan, unfortunately my backroom looks more like the surface of the moon than a storage cabinet." I told him, slightly worried about Scott, but the X-men always pull through.

After several hours of pacing and reading, its what I do when I get worried, I got news. Scott was okay, he has a concussion but he is alive. We also have a new resident, Rogue, who is going to be rooming with Kitty, that's going to be an interesting combination.

I got a call, from the Professor, telling me to put my face on the computer screen in the study.

I got access to the computer screen, and I knew my image showed up, because the entire mansion was looking at me. I decided to start, "What's up guys? Rogue, Scott, its good to see you're both doing well. Rogue, welcome to the institute!" I said, and everyone except Storm, Logan, and the Professor looked at me weirdly.

Jean was the first one to speak up. "Derek, why aren't you up here with us? And why did you not show up at school today? Did another one of your 'important' projects come up?" She still had a curious expression on her face.

I sighed, and had the real sudden urge to sneeze; I wouldn't get to my back room in time. So I aimed toward a blank piece of wall, and as Kurt would eloquently put it, 'Let it rip.' I felt a slight shockwave from the impact, and I looked at where I aimed. I actually aimed it quite well, there was a two-foot dent in the wall, with a diameter of about a meter. I turned back to the screen, and saw all the people my age had wide eyes. I chuckled at the looks on their faces, "I hope that answered your questions Jean, right now unfortunately I am in chosen isolation I'm not feeling great, and I started sneezing dents," I pause for a moment, "well, craters, into the wall. I don't want anyone coming anywhere near me until I gain control."

"Anyways, what is this meeting about Professor?" I turned toward him, trying to change the subject by asking the question, and everyone else also turned toward him, a curious look on all of their faces.

The Professor looked slightly guilty, and he went into the explanation of how our principal was Mystique in disguise. Scott found out about it today, which in my opinion, was an unintelligent move for Mystique. As a master of disguise, she should keep her other identities that she currently uses a secret. She basically revealed that there was a spy in the school, and her location. Lets just say the rest of the students were not happy to find out their principal was the enemy they were fighting against.

"It's the same as lying to us! We had a right to know who our principal really was." Scott told the adults,

"Yeah. Totally." Kitty added, but she paused for a second, that look in her eye told me that she was going to ask a question. "How come you didn't tell us?"

"Yeah, man. What did you think we were gonna do? Go after her? Man, we know better." Evan said, and everyone else shook his or her heads in agreement.

"She wants to play like nothing's going down, so can we." Kitty said, determined to best our adversary.

"It's like we were playing with fire and didn't even know it." Jean mumbled, but everyone heard her since you could hear a pin drop in the room at the moment.

"Rogue?" Scott asked, hoping she would add on, and make sure the X-men were not lied to again.

"It's not my place." She said, putting her hands up in a slightly defensive position.

"Sure it is. You're part of the family now." Kitty said, wanting to make sure her new roommate would be honest with everyone.

"Yeah, girl. Tell us what you think." Kurt said, crouching on a chair across the room.

"Well, I think…" She paused for a moment rethinking her words, "No, I've learned that honesty is very important between people you care about. At least it is to me." She looked very serious, and we all understood what she was trying to convey. I messed up big time by not telling everyone about her.

"You're right, all of you. I must apologize for keeping this secret from you. But please understand, there are many challenges in your future secrets, elements of surprise. Some you're ready to deal with, some you're not. In the future, I will try to do better knowing which is which." The Professor said, looking at each student in the eye. It takes a big man to recognize his mistakes, and bigger man to fix them. I'm going to have to be honest about the fact I knew who she was as well.

"Thanks, professor. We're all in this together. It's nice to know we've all got something to learn. That's what makes us X-Men." Scott said, standing up slowly,

But before everyone could leave, Jean said, "Derek, you look like you want to say something."

I looked at everyone, and decided on what I was going to say at the moment. "Guys, I would like to apologize as well," Everyone gave me a curious look, "Well, I knew that Mystique was Principal Darkholme for quite a while now. I should have told you guys sooner, but I had her under close surveillance, and when I say close, I mean I bugged her room to see what she was planning." I felt really guilty by not telling them, and now I've learned my lesson, so I decided to tell them the full extent of what I was building at the moment.

Everyone looked quite mad at that fact, but I put on my hardened face. "I also have to be honest with you about something else." Everyone looked quite mad at me; they were probably wondering what in the hell I was being honest about this time.

I took a deep breath, "You guys saw that aircraft I was building in my lab, right?" They all nodded, and Rogue looked clueless, so they told her about everything we talked about a week ago. The Professor and Logan looked slightly proud of me for a second, since I was finally telling them about the true nature of the giant structure in my lab.

"Well, it's not really an aircraft." I paused, waiting to see if they caught on. It took a couple of seconds, but Jean and Kitty were the first, their eyes bugged out of their skulls, and they looked at me, like deer's caught in the headlights.

"Derek! You can't seriously take that thing up! You might die!" Kitty yelled at the screen.

"Do you now how many risks your taking by going up?!" Jean yelled as well.

Scott's eyes bugged out in realization as well, but the others haven't caught on yet.

"What do you mean, take up?" Kurt asked, still unknowing about what I was planning.

Scott then narrowed his eyes, "You're telling me that you built a spaceship, and weren't going to tell us!" He yelled and he looked pretty angry when he said that. Kurt and Evan nearly fainted, and Rogue was flabbergasted, not knowing what to say.

I looked at him calmly through the screen; my temper was starting to rise. "I was going to tell you once I got back, because I didn't want to worry you guys that much." I paused for a moment "But after the discussion with the Professor, I realized you guys might be ready to know. I'm going up by myself in a week," The Professor and Logan looked at me, shocked, I forgot to tell them how close the shuttle was to completion. I continued, "so I was going to let you guys know I was going on an extended mission, but it looks like that isn't happening right now." I told them, all of them looked really pissed at the moment.

"Wait. Reed Richards announced that their flight to the space station was bumped up, because a week and half from now is the cosmic phenomena!" I heard Jean yell, her eyes narrowed at me.

I looked at her with an expressionless face, "Yes, I know Jean, that is what I'm going to be studying when I am in orbit. And I'm launching a satellite as well."

Her eyes narrowed at mine, along with everyone else's. I saw Kitty looking absolutely livid, but she was on the verge of tears at the same time.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that trip will be? You could die!" She yelled, tears threatening to drop, "Do you know how many people will be hurt if you're gone forever? How selfish you're being at the moment?" She paused, and I noticed that she was about to full out cry. "Do you know what, I'm like, totally out of here!" She stormed out, with everyone else shooting me glares and leaving. I felt really guilty, and it showed on my face.

The Professor, Ororo, and Logan looked at me with pity.

The Professor was the first one to speak "I am glad you have told them the truth Derek, the needed to know. Although, I don't think any of them are going to talk to you for a while."

I still looked really downcast, but I had to tell them. "Guys, this was something I had to tell them. They're going to need time to get over my deception. This was the second time I've lied to them this year. Luckily next week is spring break, so I won't have to lie to the school about my absences, and everyone is out of the institute visiting their families, except for Scott and Rogue. I have a feeling none of them are going to talk to me until I come back after the trip." I said, looking each one of them in the eye.

"I think that you're right Bub, but you did the right thing by telling them the truth." He told me, smirking a little bit. "You're really done with the spacecraft?"

I nodded, "As soon as I saw the cosmic phenomena was approaching faster than expected, I started building much more rapidly, I want to study this event, as it could give me clues to how the universe works, and also someone needs to keep an eye on the scientists. E.L.E.N. is running the system tests now, and it should be ready to fly within the next five days. All I need to do is master this new subpower before I go up." I told them.

"You know of the risks, Derek, but just remember those wise words that Kitty told you, there are people that care about you if anything were to happen up there." The Professor told me, wise words indeed.

My had bobbed up and down, "Yes Professor, and please keep me informed about how everyone is doing, I need time to master this new subpower."

He acknowledged my statement, and we all said goodnight and went off to bed, it was getting really late, especially for a school night.

I never heard from anyone for the rest of the week. Literally all I had to talk to at the moment was E.L.E.N, the Professor, Logan, and Ororo. Everyone was still super pissed at me, and I knew I wasn't going to see them until after the space flight. They probably still felt betrayed. Apparently Evan failed his paper on the star wars defensive network, made a documentary about his life, and there was the whole debacle with Sabretooth finding Wolverine, again, with said documentary. In the end Wolverine told me that they trapped him and they dumped him in the northern reaches of Canada, which made me laugh. I heard that Kitty and Rogue tried out for a play, apparently they thought the main lead was cute. I got really sad when I heard that, but I still asked the Professor to stream the feed live to my TV in the lab. They did a good job on their performances.

I was still in isolation, but I have the new subpower down nearly mastered, once I felt better I discovered I could use my hands to project the gravimetric blast instead of my sneezes. It was a Sunday morning, I knew that Reed Richards and his crew were launching today, it's been all over the news. Also, I was launching today, and I would be using my new shuttle that can stay in space for up to two weeks, has a science lab, four beds, a cockpit, and since I can control gravity, I don't have to worry about floating in space or working out that much.

I was standing beside my ship in the main hangar, in my new spacesuit that I was going to use while I was up in orbit. Scott and Rogue showed up along with the Professor and Logan. Everyone else was gone, visiting their families and spending time with them.

"Be careful Bub, who knows what you'll find up there in the unknown." I nodded, and gave him a half hug.

Scott came up to me, rubbing the back of his head looking guilty. "Derek, I'm sorry we" He gestured to Rogue as well, "ignored you this past week, we were a little to harsh with you, and I'm sorry. But you have to admit we were still pretty ticked about you lying to us, twice. I'm sure that if the others were here, they would agree with me."

I nodded, and gave them both hugs, "You were already forgiven after you walked out of the room, I knew that something like that might have happened, but I knew what I did was wrong, so I'm sorry as well."

They smiled a little bit. "Well, looks like I'm off, wish me luck with my experiments you guys!"

As I got onto the sleek spacecraft, I waved, and went to the cockpit. I finished all the preflight checklists, and took off out of the hangar. When I was flying over the Atlantic, I punched it, flying straight up at an escape velocity of more than 11.2 km/s, it would take me another ten minutes before I got out of Earths gravity well.

Once I was positioned, I got into a high elliptical orbit, I found the space station and saw that a ship was docking on there, so I decided to shadow it, and followed it's orbit around the Earth.

Once E.L.E.N was ready, I started using the computer on board to hack the space stations systems. It took me about three hours since I didn't want to get noticed, and it was Reed Richards design, which nearly rivaled my I wasn't going to do anything; I just wanted to be informed if they had any troubles with their systems. After all, at the end of the day I just wanted everyone to remain safe in the end. Apparently there were four people on the station, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, her little brother Johnny Storm, and their pilot Ben Grimm.

It was roughly three in the morning by the time everything was set up. I was going to jettison my mini satellite into the atmosphere and get it into a high orbit. It was also two days until the cosmic anomaly, so I have to be ready for that as well.

The next day E.L.E.N and I jettisoned the satellite, and that went off without a hitch, and we decided to start on some biology and physics experiments while in orbit. We then observed the Earth for the rest of the day scanning the Earth's magnetic field, and gravitational fields.

The following day, we were battening down the hatches, and that is what I noticed the other space station was doing at the moment. They were getting ready for the inevitable storm that was going to roll through. I went to sleep early that night so I would be awake for what is to come the next day.

I awakened and looked out into the distance, and saw a white, abnormally shaped, glowing object coming toward the space station and the ship,

'It looks enormous!' I thought to myself, and I start scanning the anomaly before it disappeared. E.L.E.N activated my shields hours ago, so I was going to be safe from the cosmic radiation.

I continued scanning, until it looked like the cloud was several hundred kilometers across. I kept observing it until it hit the space station and my ship. There was a slight shaking when the storm passed over me, but in the end I was relatively safe, there were no malfunctions of any kind.

'Thank you E.L.E.N for being such an remarkable artificial intelligence.' I thought to myself, the scans she used were obviously prepared well since my shields were holding at maximum strength. However, there was one thing I noticed, my long-range communications are out. 'This could be a huge problem!' I thought to myself, if I didn't have communications, I wouldn't have any idea on what's going on or what to do if there was an emergency on Earth.

I looked over to the space stations shields, since I still had contact with their systems in a close range. I saw the shields dropping rapidly, and they were also losing power swiftly, my eyes widened in surprise and shock.

'This is definitely not good.'

"E.L.E.N! Help me pilot the ship to within several hundred meters of the space station! Now! It looks like they're in trouble!"

"_I'm on it!"_ she yelled, sounding a little frantic.

We descended, but unfortunately it took us ten minutes to get to them, and by the time that happened their radiation shields were gone, and mine were starting to fail as well, since the storm lasted longer than anticipated.

"_Derek," _I heard E.L.E.N. say, _"It looks like the only way to save them is if you go aboard and retrieve them. They can only last for ten more minutes exposed to this much radiation!"_ I weighed my options, but in the end, I had to do what was right, I suited up in less than a minute, and flew over to the space station using my powers. I was in the worst pain imaginable right now, for some reason the radiation effected me more than it did the others.

Once I was onboard, I grabbed all of them, luckily they were still slightly protected due to their suits, but they were all unconscious. I used my powers to drag them across the expanse toward my ship, and the storm was still not letting up. I got them into the airlock, and once the airlock was pressurized again, I strapped them all onto beds I had attached to the side of the ships. E.L.E.N was still fine with piloting, so I also set them up with heart monitors, and life support. Unfortunately I was still in extreme pain from my trip out into the cosmic storm.

See, my suit didn't actually have protection like theirs did, but I was out there for only five minutes. But those five minutes hurt like hell, and I was still feeling the after effects. I got to the cockpit, and noticing the cosmic storm was gone, I talked with E.L.E.N.

"We need to get back to the institute! Now!" I started putting in commands and piloting the ship. We were actually very lucky that we were orbiting over the east coast at the moment.

It took us several hours, but we finally entered the lower atmosphere, and I piloted the ship into the Hangar under the institute. I was in a lot of pain at the moment, but the adrenalin rush was keeping me going. I had to focus on reentry, or else we could have all died. I told E.L.E.N to tell everyone to come down here since it was a medical emergency. I told them to be cautious as well, since I was still in a lot of pain, and I had a feeling it was due to the cosmic radiation, but I wasn't sure. Within the next several minutes, I saw Rogue, Scott and Logan sprint into the hangar, wearing full radiation suits. I pulled out my four passengers using my powers, and started levitating them and myself into the Medical bay. Scott and Logan helped direct the passengers into beds. I saw that everyone was okay, and then I promptly passed out on the bed, entering a dreamless sleep.

I could tell that I slept for a long time, a very long time. I noticed that I had been sleeping for roughly ninety-six hours, and for some reason, I felt better than I did before, as in before the cosmic storm. For some reason, I felt, stronger. I saw the Professor and Logan come in, and they looked relieved that I was awake. They must have seen that my heart rate increased and my vitals were back.

"Derek, in all my years I have never been so relieved to see a student alive. That was probably the closest call I have ever had." But before the Professor could finish, Logan butted in.

"Bub! You're an idiot, the biggest idiot ever," I had to chuckle that that one, because in this case it was true. "That was probably one of the most stupidest things you have ever done in your entire life, but at the same time, the most heroic, I'm proud of you Derek." I smiled at that, I'm glad that Logan and the Professor are slightly proud of me.

"How do you feel Derek? Logan and I thought you were in a coma, since you only need an hour and a half of sleep every night, that's the equivalent of roughly sixty-four days of sleep for you. We are extremely happy to see that you're out and about at the moment. Everyone has been tremendously worried about you."

"Now Derek, could you tell us what happened on your journey?" So I explained everything, how the cosmic storm hit, and how neither of our shields were holding out, more so Reed Richards than mine. Then how I rescued them from the space station, and how I piloted us down from space and until I ended up in the medical bay.

They told me their side of the story, apparently a telescope was tracking the four astronauts in space, and when they saw the cosmic storm hit, all communication was lost. This was on all the news networks, and the news last reported that they saw another ship approached the cosmic storm, and then everything else was a mystery to the general public at the moment. The authorities have assumed the worst though, pronouncing the four astronauts dead. Fortunately, I could make a call to a certain super spy and he could fix that mess from behind the scenes.

Everyone at the institute thought I died when everyone lost contact, and I learned that Kitty was inconsolable when she saw the news and heard from Scott and Rogue. Once they learned I was alive, they calmed down a lot, but they still wanted to talk to me.

'I'm going to have to make it up to everyone and Kitty when they all get back to the institute.'

I sat at the bed, continuing to recover, and analyze what happened to my body. I then looked at my watch, and I noticed a new feeling, it feels like I know my body a little more.

'I can't describe this… What is this feeling? Was it a side effect of the cosmic rays? How is that even possible?' I thought to myself, unsure about this new revelation.

I decided to have someone stationed in the med bay with me at all times, in case the others woke up from their unconscious state. Later that day I talked with everyone over a video message, and they were very relieved to see me well, and most importantly, still alive. After each of them chewed me out, we all had good conversations. I noticed that it looked like Kitty didn't sleep for a day or two.

I then started to analyze the medical set up for the four, and there was only one that looked effected by the cosmic rays. For some reason he grew orange dermal armor. However, I knew all of us were exposed to the radiation long enough. There were still trace amounts of radiation left in all of us, mostly them however, since they were exposed to it for much longer. I started having E.L.E.N scan them to see if the other three have abnormal abilities. I sat down on a chair in the medical bay and started to reflect on what happened.

'I wonder what happened once I disappeared.' I thought to myself.

-Four days ago-

-Northbrook, Illinois-

**-Kitty POV-**

I felt betrayed after Derek told us that he was building a spaceship, and I didn't talk to him the entire week before I left. I even tried out for a play because I thought the lead was cute. I got on to the plane, still fuming that he didn't show up, because everyone else did. However, once I got on the airplane, I felt really bad, because he was in isolation all week, and we all ignored him. I decided that on the other end I was going to apologize.

I tried his number but it went to voicemail, so I tried Scotts, who was staying at the institute with my new roommate Rogue, and the rest of the mentors and teachers. He picked up. I talked with him and asked him if I could talk to Derek, unfortunately, I was several hours late, he was already in orbit. But he told me that he talked to Derek before he went up, and he forgave everyone, and understood why we ignored him. I sighed, knowing that was what Derek would do, and he will do anything for his friends and family. I was kind of sad the entire Spring Break, and my mom came to talk to me about it at one point.

-Flashback-

-Yesterday-

I was sitting on my bed working on my laptop, emailing my friends back in Bayville. They were wondering where Derek was this week. I messaged them, telling them that he was quite sick at the moment. I think everyone noticed that whenever they said Derek's name in the high school, we all stiffened slightly. Talking about him made me sad. He was the first person that I have really liked, instead of just crushed on. I felt really bad; this was a person who has helped me advance my studies in computer science, the one who looked out for me at school at the institute, the one who would do nearly anything to protect me. What did I do? I disregarded him entirely for the entire week, and I couldn't even apologize because he already left, that made me feel lousy.

I heard a knock on the door. "Come in." I said, and my mother walked in, and at on my bed.

"Kitty, what's bothering you?" she asked, she looked at me with genuine concern, "you've been acting evasive around your father and I, and I want to know what is bothering you."

At that moment, I felt fresh tears roll down my face and I hugged my mom, and told her what happened with a boy I liked, a lot. She comforted me, and when I told her that he forgave all of us, she smiled, telling us that it's okay to admit your mistakes. I hugged her, and thought about my predicament, and she was right. I realized my mistakes, and I knew what to do next time. I was just so angry that he was being selfish.

It was comforting talking with my mom about the situation; she gave me some good advice. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell her the real reason why I ignored him. How many parents would believe that the boy you like, a lot, built a spaceship to study cosmic radiation in orbit?

While I was thinking my mom asked me, "So who's the lucky guy who got my daughters attention?"

I blushed heavily, and I started thinking about Derek. I looked at my mom, and she smiled a little bit.

"This boy wouldn't happen to be tall, modest, smart, and has neon green eyes, right?"

I looked at her; a stunned expression adorned my face.

'How did she possibly know that?'

I looked at her quizzically; I want to know how she knew.

She smiled at me, "I noticed the way you were looking at him when he came to take you to the institute. It looked like you were sad when he left to sleep in the jet."

I gave her an innocent smile, 'I hope I'm not that obvious, like, all the time.'

-Flashback over-

I was sitting with my family eating dinner on the third day of spring break. We had the news on at the moment, just to tide me over. All the news networks were talking about the upcoming cosmic storm and what it could possibly affect. The two scientists they credited to possible predictions on the effect of the cosmic storm in the atmosphere are Reed Richards, and James Black, which made me smile sadly. We were discussing everything that was happening at the moment. Apparently the two bullies at my school are transferring out after the school year was over. I looked over at the news, and saw that it looked pretty urgent, so I asked my parents to turn it up.

"_We have received word from a spokesman of the space agency that it has lost contact with the space station housing Reed Richards and his team." _There was a slight pause. _"The last thing to be seen near the cosmic storm is this shuttle,"_

I put my hands over my mouth, 'That's Derek's shuttle!' I was freaking out right now, I knew he was up in orbit but I didn't expect him to get that close to the storm. My parents shot me a look, 'Because I know the man in that ship.'

"_The space agency has tried to contact this shuttle but it has been unresponsive. It is unknown which country or agency this ship belongs too." _A picture appeared on the screen, _"It was last seen entering the storm, and it is unknown what will happen once the cosmic phenomena disappears. We will keep giving everyone live updates on this story. In other news the country of Wakanda has been recognized by the UN earlier this week, and the civil war in Latveria has come to an end after several years, the new monarch in charge is a man known as Dr. Doom. More to come later."_

Tears were streaming down my face, my parents looked shocked. My mom and dad came up to hug me, "What's the matter Kitty? Everything's going to be okay." I was sobbing, and I felt inconsolable at the moment. I decided to tell them the truth, since they would want to know.

"M-mom, D-d-dad, I haven't be-e-n entirely honest with you, the rea-s-son I got into a fight with my fri-e-nd last week was because he was go-i-ng to leave and some-something dangerous." The kept hugging me, which was quite comforting. "My fri-end Derek, actually built a ship to s-study the cos-mic anomaly." My parents looked shock, beyond shocked.

My dad started, he was frowning a little bit, "So you're telling me that the boy, who we met before you went to the institute, built a spaceship, to study the cosmic storm in space, and now his shuttle is in the storm and he has lost all communications with everyone."

I smiled a little bit, "I-If you want to read his thesis o-on the storm he also goes by J-James Black."

If it was possible, my parents eyes bugged out even more at that, I don't think the believe me, but still, I was pretty distraught that this was happening.

'I hope he gets out of the storm!'

My parents hugged me even harder at the moment. We all stayed down to watch the updates. Thirty minutes later, some news came, _"We have a visual of the space station, and it looks to be destroyed, the space agency have announced the deaths the astronauts Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm, and pilot Ben Grimm have died in the storm, these pioneers will never be forgotten." _My parents and I hugged one another, unsure of the fate of the other ship up in orbit at the time. _"There has been no visual of the other ship and it has mysteriously disappeared since the storm has passed, updates are still coming in! Stay tuned."_

I decided to call the institute, and I called Scott to see if he had any updates on the situation. Unfortunately, I didn't get an answer. I was sitting there for about six hours, it was roughly three in the morning, but I couldn't go to sleep. I just wanted to hear news that Derek was okay! I needed to know.

I was lying down on the couch in the living room, working on my laptop, trying to work on a computer program, trying to get the news of the space station off my mind. Unfortunately, I kept on the news, as it was still giving news about the cosmic phenomena, and the now deceased Reed Richards. My parents went to bed two hours ago, they were falling asleep and couldn't handle the late night. I tried my best to keep my mind off Derek, but it was hopeless.

I was about to finish the program when I got a video call, and it was from the institute. I quickly answered it, and saw that it was Scott and Rogue, but it was also a conference call, and I noticed that Evan and Ororo were on one screen both had very serious expressions on their faces, Jean was on the other, she looked like she had cried a lot as well. Finally, Kurt showed up on his screen, looking really depressed and glum, an unfamiliar face on the normally cheerful and silly person.

Scott looked at all of us for a second, a serious look on his face, "I have some good news, Derek landed nearly an hour ago, with the four astronauts in the space station as well. They're all in the medical bay at the moment." There was a slight pause, but everyone on the conference call smiled, and felt a sense of relief that Derek was okay, and he even rescued the astronauts! "The bad news is that Derek landed, and proceeded to pass out, he is in a coma along with the other four. But I'm sure he'll make a quick recovery and will be back on his feet soon." Scott said, smiling a little bit. "He is to stubborn to stay in a coma for to long." And we all slightly chuckled a little bit.

However, I was still worried, how long will he be in this coma? What will happen when he wakes up? There are so many unknowns at the moment. I wish I could go back, but I know Derek would want everyone to spend time with his or her own families.

-At the Institute-

**-Derek POV-**

I was sitting in the medical bay, reading another book, and writing notes and schematics for an updated space ship. Unfortunately, I went to take a look and see how bad the damage was, and lets just say, I was lucky that I got the whole thing down in one piece in the first bloody place. I believe it is going to need an overhaul, which will take several months to repair, and update. It was Friday, and everyone was coming back on the Sunday, but I spent a lot of time with Scott and Rogue, which they were happy about. Actually Scott was right next to me, doing his assignment for spring break.

I looked over to the four astronauts, and I saw one starting to stir, and it was the young woman, who I think was only four or five years older than us. She was blond, and was very attractive, and had a nice figure. I looked over to Scott,

"Scott, go get the Professor and Logan, they'll want to help us calm down the patients." He nodded, and called the professor down in his mind. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it, the Professor and Jean still couldn't go near mine.

I went over to her bedside, and she sat up quickly, a slight look of fear in her eyes, she looked at me, backing toward the end of the bed, away from me. She spoke in a quick voice "Where am I? What's going on? What happened to the Space Station! Who are you?" I stopped her before she could continue.

"Calm down Ms. Storm you're safe, you are currently on the planet. Your friends are in comas right now, but hopefully they'll be up in the next few days." I told her, in a calm voice. "You are the first humans to survive a cosmic anomaly. And if you must know, my name is Derek Goddart, but I also go by James Black, and back there is my friend Scott Summers."

Her eyes grew really wide when she heard James Black, I heard her mutter, "So you're the one that proves Reed wrong sometimes."

I chuckled when I heard that, "Unfortunately, Ms. Storm," I started, but I was interrupted,

"Please, call me Susan," she told me,

I nodded, "Well, Susan," she smiled a little bit, "Some of our scientific theories… Conflict, but some also coincide, and to be fair, Reed has proved me wrong sometimes as well." I mumbled the last part, but she laughed.

"Quick question, how old are you guys?" she asked, I looked over at Scott, and he looked back at me,

"We're seventeen ma'am. Although our mentors are on their way down here now." Scott told her, and she nodded. She looked at us flabbergasted; she probably couldn't believe two seventeen year olds rescued her team.

"We'll have to discuss what happened on the space station with you in a little bit, in the meantime, you must be awfully hungry, what would you like to eat?" I asked her, and she put her hand up to her chin,

"I think a peanut butter jelly sandwich with some Macaroni and Cheese would be amazing right now!" I smiled a little bit,

"I'm on it, in the meantime, there is a bathroom in that door over there with a shower, along with a change of clothes." I told her, and she thanked me and walked over to the door, and locked it behind her.

As Scott and I walked upstairs to get Susan some food, the Professor and Logan walked by us, and we told him that Susan woke up and was getting changed at the moment. They thanked us and continued down the hall. Once we got the food, we walked back and saw Susan talking with the Professor and Logan. They were discussing the current health of her comrades.

"… Before the shields shut off Reed actually tried to convert power to the shields, but it was to late." We heard her say, and we walked in with the food and drink.

I put the tray on the table she was sitting near; she smiled at us and ate the whole thing within minutes.

We continued to talk about everything, until she sneezed, and completely disappeared! We were all pretty shocked, but it was expected, unfortunately Ben Grimm would be covered in orange dermal armor for the rest of his life. But I don't think any of us were suddenly expecting her powers to emerge that quickly.

"Uh, Susan, are you still in the same place as you were before?" I asked her, scanning the room, seeing if I could spot her.

"I'm right here," We all looked to the spot that was occupied by Susan's voice, but not Susan.

"Susan, you're invisible right now, we can't see you at all." The Professor told her, and she sneezed again, and became visible.

She looked at us with widened eyes, "Did I really turn invisible, because that is SO COOL!" she said, looking down at her hands. And then back up to me, "Derek, were you effected when you were exposed to the radiation?" she asked, genuine curiosity evident on her face.

"As a matter of fact, I think I have a minor change in my physiology, but its quite minor, probably because my powers protected me from most of the radiation." I told her, sipping a cup of tea at the moment.

"What do you mean, you already have powers?" She asked, and we all chuckled around her.

"Darling," Logan started, but Susan's eyes narrowed, I don't think she liked to be called darling, "You're currently in a house where we have people who can," he put started listing on his fingers for emphasis "heal after several bullet wounds, walk through walls, shoot blasts through their eyes, can read minds, can make objects float, control the weather, shoot spikes form their arms, and we even have a blue elf that can teleport to different places, we even have him." He pointed at me, "a person with a super brain and can control gravity." He finished,

Susan looked slightly freaked out, "If you didn't get your powers from the cosmic rays, how did you get them?" She asked.

"Well, Susan, there has been a gene that has popped up in recent generations, I call it the X-gene. It is a gene that gives us our powers, and roughly only one in every ten thousand people have it. Right now I am gathering students with the gene to help them gain control of their powers. I want humanity and mutant kind to coincide with one another, I want them to get along, and have a peaceful transition into the world." The Professor told her.

She looked at us, "So you're all mutants, who are striving to integrate peacefully with all of man kind," she paused, "I can respect that."

We suddenly saw some more stirring from the tall blond man, who got up quickly, and saw with widened eyes, that he was in a futuristic medical bay.

"Where am I? Did I die?" He looked over at the group of us. He was surprised to see his sister "Sis? What's going on?" We told him everything that happened, and then he coughed, and he suddenly burst into flames, we all freaked out, and he started freaking out as well. He dropped and rolled, but he couldn't put himself out, but then I saw Scott grab a fire extinguisher and luckily he put out the flames.

"Woo…" Johnny wiped his forehead, "Thanks again dude, I thought I was a goner there! Although that doesn't explain why I suddenly burst into flame…" He told Scott, who was still holding the fire extinguisher and aiming toward Johnny.

"Johnny," he turned toward his older sister, "I think the cosmic storm affected us in ways we couldn't possibly imagine." She then proceeded to tell Johnny everything we told her,

when he heard I was James Black, he high fived me, "Nice Dude! Reed's going to flip when he finds out your only seventeen though." and then we told him how the cosmic ray may have given him abnormal abilities, and he looked excited about that.

"Mr. Xavier, I think we're going to have to take you up on that offer of spending some time here, learning how to control our new powers."

Suddenly, we heard a slight rumble, and turned around, it looked like Ben Grimm was waking up.

We heard a gravelly voice "Uh, What happened?" He then looked at his hands, which were now covered in an orange layer of rock. "What the hell happened to my hands?!" He looked up and saw Susan, "Suzie!" and looked over to Johnny, "Johnny," he grumbled. "What is going on here? Who are these people?"

Johnny was about to answer but Susan beat him to it, probably for the better. "Ben, these people are the ones that rescued us form the space station." She started pointing to us, "That's Professor Charles Xavier, Scott Summers, Logan, and Derek Goddart, who also goes by the name of James Black."

Again, his eyes widened, "Reed's going to be excited…" He mumbled, and then we went through explaining what happened, again. He still looked really dejected because of his new appearance; you can't blame a guy though. He may no longer be entirely human, but I'm not the expert on biology so I can't really say.

"Unfortunately people are going to be seeing this ugly mug all the time now." He said, looking really sad.

"Maybe not," I said, and I looked over toward the Professor, "Professor, do you think we can spare Mr. Grimm here a holowatch?"

He looked at over at me, then to Ben, "That is a brilliant idea Derek, if it could hide Kurt why couldn't it hide Ben?"

"I'll run and get one now." I told him, and I left, a minute later I came back, and put the watch on Ben's wrist, although I had to adjust the strap, a lot.

I pushed a button, and I saw Johnny and Susan gasp. "What? Have I got something on my face?" Ben asked still currently unaware of his new appearance.

"Mr. Grimm, why don't you go take a look at your reflection for a second." Scott told him, and directed him toward the window in the medical bay.

He went over to the window, still slouching a little bit, but when he looked in the mirror, he had a look of his amazement on his face.

He started standing up straighter, flexing his muscles. "Suzie, Johnny, I look good!"

We all laughed at his antics, and I explained to him, "That is an image inducer that the professor and I created, it hides the appearance of a person, however, it doesn't hide the effects of your powers, in your case, meaning your dermal armor and I believe you have super strength now."

Ben then proceeded to pick up the sofa, with Scott, Johnny and I on it, with little to no effort.

"Well I guess that proves it Bub, at least I have another person to spar with over the next couple of weeks." Wolverine said, smirking a little evilly.

Everyone kind of looked wearily over his way, Johnny looked really scared, and I held back a laugh.

We all sat discussing everything over dinner, in the medical bay since Johnny and Ben haven't eaten in technically days. They ate nearly as much as Kurt and I, lets just say it would have been a food eating contest if all of us were to get together.

We suddenly heard Reed starting to stir, and I saw Susan rush over to his side. She started to help him up, and he was having a hard time getting up because his body kept slouching, "What happened Susan? Where are we?"

"We were rescued from the space station." She told him, supporting him slightly.

He looked around the room, observing everything, as expected by the smartest man on the planet. He looked over at Professor Xavier and his eyes widened considerably.

**Well, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Again, updates are probably going to start slowing down at this point… Again, criticism is welcome.**


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